Explosive USA Growth of Central American Gangs

Monday, March 5, 2007

By Sam Logan and Ashley Morse

As its ranks swell in the tri-state area around Washington, DC, due to a constant flow of human smuggling, law enforcement has begun to treat the Mara Salvatrucha more like organized crime than a street gang.

Surrounding Washington, DC, is an area populated with some of the most powerful politicians in the world. The same area is home to one of the country’s most powerful street gangs, the Mara Salvatrucha. The gang’s power derives from acts of violence and an endless supply of new recruits, smuggled from El Salvador directly to the tri-state area between Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC.

A conveyor belt of clandestine, transnational travel exists between Maryland and Central America, ferrying Mara Salvatrucha members from the US south via points of contact in various Mexican towns along traditional immigration paths.