Why everyone’s talking about MS-13

More than 20 members of the infamous Los Angeles street gang MS-13 have been charged in connection with the murders of at least seven people over the last two years, one of whom was mutilated and dismembered.

A total of 22 people linked to the so-called “Fulton clique”, a faction of the MS-13 gang based in the San Fernando Valley, have been indicted by a grand jury on charges relating to at least 200 criminal acts in several states over a nine-year period, The Daily Beast reports.

Of those arrested, Sky News says that 18 had been apprehended over the last year on a range of federal and state charges, a further three were arrested in recent days in the Los Angeles area by a task force that included FBI agents, and the other was arrested over the weekend in Oklahoma.

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The charges will likely be seen as a coup by the administration of US President Donald Trump, who has frequently spoken about the dangers of MS-13 and tried using the gang’s criminal reputation as an excuse to clamp down on illegal immigration.

On Monday, Trump said: “We've been doing this – look, we have been removing MS-13. They’re monsters. We’ve been removing MS-13 by the thousands during my administration.”

The Guardian reports that officials called the killings so “heinous, cruel or depraved” that the defendants are eligible for the death penalty. Here is a look at the notorious MS-13 gang, and why everyone’s talking about them.

What happened?

Mara Salvatrucha-13, or MS-13, was formed by a gang of young El Salvadoreans in LA in the 1980s. It now has at least 10,000 members across 46 states in the US and more than 30,000 worldwide, according to the FBI and the Treasury Department.

“[MS-13] is one of the most dangerous and rapidly expanding criminal gangs in the world,” Philip Holloway, a legal analyst and former police officer, told Fox Business. “MS-13’s motto is ‘Mata, roba, viola, controla’ (‘Kill, steal, rape, control’).”

This week, as part of a major crackdown on the gang, it was revealed that dozens of members and associates are being tried on federal charges of racketeering and murder for allegedly taking part in a violent Southern California crime spree.

“One of the Justice Department’s highest priorities is to dismantle and attack MS-13,” Nick Hanna, the US Attorney for the Central District of California, said as he announced the charges. CNN reports that the 78-page grand jury indictment “paints a chilling picture” of the gang’s activity.

The 12-count indictment, which is the culmination of a two-year joint investigation by federal and local authorities, includes drug trafficking, extortion and the murder of rivals and anyone cooperating with or perceived as cooperating with law enforcement.

Particular attention has been paid to one of the seven murder victims, who was “hacked to death with machetes in the Angeles National Forest”, prosecutors said. They allege that on 6 March 2017, several MS-13 members abducted, choked and drove a member of a rival gang who they believed had defaced MS-13 graffiti to a remote area, after which they “dismembered the rival gang member with a machete and threw the body parts into a canyon, after one cut the heart out of the body”, the Guardian says.

According to the New York Post, the other six victims were “rival gang members, perceived snitches and a homeless man who was temporarily living in a park the gang considered its turf”.

What was the response?

Horace Frank, deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, said the violence perpetrated by the gang was almost unparalleled.

“No parent should ever have to experience what Brayan’s and the other parents and family members have endured, and continued to endure,” he said in the Los Angeles Times, referring to 16-year-old Brayan Alejandro Andino, who was beaten to death in 2017.

Claude Arnold, a former member of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, added: “These are newer entrants, so they’re making their bones with the gang, it’s just how it is. They want to make a name for themselves, and those are the people who are generally the most violent members of street gangs.”

“The greatest tragedy in these cases is that these young victims likely left their homelands hopeful that in the United States they would find safety and prosperity,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said on Tuesday. “Instead, these victims had the misfortune of crossing paths with violent gang members who preyed on the vulnerabilities of their immigrant experience.”

What next?

According to the Los Angeles Times, the sentences will likely vary for the defendants as not all are accused of the murders and some were high school students at the time of the killings.

Prosecutors have not yet said whether they intend to seek capital punishment, but media outlets have stated that those suspects who are not minors would be eligible for the death penalty.

USA Today suggests that this is “only the latest action against MS-13”, adding that authorities have targeted 34 members of the group's leadership for indictments.