Gang Sweeps Result in 103 Arrests

As part of a nationwide crackdown, federal authorities Monday announced 103 arrests in six major cities of members of Mara Salvatrucha, an international gang born in Los Angeles and now involved in murder, narcotics trafficking and human smuggling.

The sweeps, conducted in recent weeks in an operation stretching from Hollywood to New York City and Miami by agents with the Department of Homeland Security, represent the first thrust of a campaign to rein in Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS 13, officials said.

With new cells in 33 states and up to 50,000 members in the U.S. and Latin America, the gang had become a law enforcement priority in Washington, as well as in El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico.

Underscoring the gang’s national reach, more than half of the arrests announced Monday came in the New York, Washington and Baltimore areas. In Los Angeles, authorities arrested 17 reputed MS 13 members, including a former soldier in the Salvadoran military described as a founding member of the gang’s Hollywood branch.

“If you have a large-scale criminal organization operating in the United States, one that is reported to be smuggling, smuggling contraband, smuggling people, exploiting border vulnerabilities, you have to accept that as a homeland security risk,” Michael J. Garcia, assistant Homeland Security secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said at a news conference in Washington.

Kevin Kozak, assistant special agent in charge of the Los Angeles office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, added in an interview that the goal of the new initiative, known as Operation Community Shield, is “to disrupt and ultimately dismantle this gang.”

The FBI has organized a nationwide task force targeting MS 13, the first of its type concentrating on a single street gang. Formed late last year and aimed at building a comprehensive strategy that involves both local and international law enforcement officials, it includes the Homeland Security officials who made Monday’s announcement.

“This is the first time that we’ve seen a gang that has had such a rapid escalation across the country,” said Robert F. Clifford, director of the FBI task force.

Whether such actions will curtail MS 13 remains to be seen. For years, authorities in Los Angeles, the nation’s gang capital, have been targeting MS 13 and arresting hundreds of members each year. Yet several thousand others are still believed to be operating in Southern California.

Moreover, past efforts to arrest and deport Mara Salvatrucha members have helped spread the group’s influence and expand its recruiting pool to Mexico and Central America, where an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 members now operate.

Law enforcement sources now fear that gang members recruited in Central America are heading back to the U.S. A recent internal FBI memo distributed to law enforcement agencies nationwide details rail routes MS 13 has allegedly used to smuggle people into the U.S., possibly including recruits to bolster the group’s ranks.

Kozak acknowledged that deported MS 13 members have returned to the U.S. to rejoin the gang. “That historically has been a problem,” he said. “It’s not something we can change overnight.... One of the challenges is to tighten up the border and make it more difficult for them to return.”

He said the gang also draws new members, some as young as 13, from countries such as El Salvador.

Formed in the 1980s on the streets of Pico-Union, west of downtown Los Angeles, Mara Salvatrucha, which translates roughly to “Gang of Salvadoran Guys,” offered a means of protection for young Central American immigrants confronting well- established Mexican American street gangs. Within a decade, MS 13 became one of the largest and most ruthless gangs in California. It is now known for its gruesome calling card: using machetes to hack up enemies and informants.

The crackdown announced Monday comes just weeks after a top Homeland Security official told Congress that the gang, because of its purported involvement in human smuggling, could be used by terrorists trying to sneak into the U.S from Mexico. Officials insist they’ve found no evidence of such links.

A recent confidential memo prepared by a U.S. Justice Department intelligence unit warned that the gang has “established bases of operation along the U.S.-Mexico border, particularly in the Laredo [Texas] area.” MS 13 also has a major presence on the Mexico-Guatemala border, the memo stated.

“Gang members now transport drugs and illegal aliens on rail cars from Chiapas to the U.S. border, where they are smuggled overland into the United States,” it says.

Emboldened by its large numbers and expanding operations in Latin America, the gang is exerting its muscle in alarming ways, including allegedly killing 28 people on a public bus in Honduras late last year. Honduran President Ricardo Maduro has said the attack may have been a warning from MS 13 for the country to back off on its efforts to combat street gangs.

A suspected mastermind of the attack, who had a lengthy criminal record in California and had been deported four times, may have ties to a Los Angeles-based MS 13 clique, records and interviews show.

In Honduras, the security minister said late last year that his intelligence suggested that MS 13 leaders in that country had met with an Al Qaeda operative being sought by the U.S.

Several weeks ago, when international law enforcement officials gathered in San Salvador to discuss the gang, the Maduro said he could not rule out a connection between Al Qaeda and Mara Salvatrucha.

The FBI’s Clifford said Monday there was no evidence that the reported meeting between Al Qaeda and Mara Salvatrucha took place. He said such an alliance would be improbable. But he added that authorities cannot rule out the possibility.

“I think that potential exists with any criminal organization that has the infrastructure to move people and money and weapons and documents,” Clifford said.

In Los Angeles, the roundup by Homeland Security agents netted reputed gang members who were between 20 and 40 years old and had arrest records, from narcotics and firearm violations to robbery and attempted murder, according to federal authorities. Many of those arrested had reentered the country illegally after being deported and could face prison time before being deported again.

In the coming months, authorities say, they expect hundreds of additional arrests of MS 13 members, the majority of whom are in the country illegally.

Times staff writers Elise Castelli in Washington and Richard Winton in Los Angeles contributed to this report.