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Immigration See other Immigration Articles Title: Oregon is warned of brutal M-13 gang Oregon is warned of brutal M-13 gang Despite FBI testimony to the contrary, the group doesn't appear to be in the state, but experts say it's a matter of time Friday, May 20, 2005 Testifying on Capitol Hill in late April, a high-ranking FBI official made a claim that sent Oregon's gang cops scrambling to recheck their intelligence reports. The United States' most brutal street gang, MS-13, known for beheading enemies and staging grenade and machete attacks, had arrived in Oregon, Assistant FBI Director Chris Swecker told U.S. House members. "MS-13 has a significant presence in northern Virginia, New York, California, Texas, as well as in places as disparate and widespread as Oregon City, Ore., and Omaha, Neb.," Swecker said. Significant presence? In Oregon City? "If MS-13 is in Oregon City, I wish the FBI would tell us," said Oregon City police Lt. Lisa Nunes. Experts say MS-13 is an international criminal organization -- trafficking in drugs, arms, alien smuggling, prostitution and home robberies. It is rooted in the U.S.-backed civil war against guerrillas in El Salvador. Refugees fleeing that conflict formed and named the gang. MS-13 was created in a Salvadoran neighborhood of Los Angeles. MS is short for Mara Salvatrucha: "Mara" means gang in Salvadoran; "Salvatrucha" is the word for a Salvadoran male, and was used by guerrilla fighters in El Salvador. The 13 means the gang is a "Sureno" or Southern California Latino gang. Originally, the 13 was adopted because it refers to the letter M -- the 13th letter in the alphabet -- for Mexico. Federal authorities characterize the gang as a soulless, tattooed army of cutthroats, audacious enough to go to war with Central American political groups and California's most infamous gangsters. This week, two MS-13 members in Alexandria, Va., were convicted of hacking to death a pregnant teen on the banks of the Shenandoah River after she was exposed as a federal informant. In recent months, gang investigators from California to Maryland have uncovered MS-13 plots to randomly ambush and kill police. According to the FBI, MS-13 now has between 30,000 and 50,000 members in five countries, including about 10,000 in the United States. Mara Salvatrucha has a violent ongoing war with other Sureno gangs, particularly 18th Street, which also began in Los Angeles with Salvadoran roots. While 18th Street is established in Portland, there is no evidence that MS-13 has forged a presence in Oregon, state authorities say. Police have encountered people in the state claiming membership to MS-13, but not in Oregon City. While Oregon authorities refute the FBI's report that MS-13 is in the state, they are preparing for the gang's arrival. "Like any gang with this kind of power, they're going to come to Oregon," said Mike Beagan, president of the Northwest Gang Investigators Association. "Just like 18th Street moved up from L.A. Just like the Bloods and Crips moved up from L.A." Violence is inevitable Ed Develasco, a noted MS-13 expert, began monitoring the gang as a Los Angeles police officer. Develasco was in Wilsonville on Thursday teaching dozens of Oregon law enforcement officials on how to attack and cripple MS-13 when it arrives. His advice: Don't rely solely on traditional policing. Tear apart the gang's organized criminal enterprises, using laws designed to dismantle the Mafia. "But you can't avoid the violence, and MS is extremely, extremely violent," said Develasco, who is now a special agent supervisor for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. "They ratchet it up a couple notches." In Oregon, the Department of Justice has "documented" five people who claimed membership to Mara Salvatrucha -- two in Portland, two in Hillsboro and one in Salem. But those encounters were about five years ago, Beagan said. "The truth is," he said, "those guys are gone." In one case, Portland police came across MS-13 members during a patrol, said Russ Corno, a Portland gang enforcement officer. "They claimed the name," he said, but the teenagers didn't engage in criminal activity and didn't appear to be part of an organized operation during the year they were in town. Wrong use of "significance presence" Beagan said it is hard to know whether authorities were dealing with authentic MS-13 members. "Basically," he said, "there is not as big a presence as the feds have made it out to be." Swecker, the FBI assistant director, concedes he could have done a better job of stringing his words together during his April 20 testimony before the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. He said he didn't mean to say MS-13 had a "significance presence" in Oregon City. "What it was meant to illustrate is that this is not just a problem in inner cities, but in outlying areas," Swecker said. Oregon City found its way into the congressional testimony based on information culled from a local police report, Swecker said. Dan Neilsen, the FBI's assistant special agent in charge in Portland, said the origin likely was a reported assault in Oregon City in 1998. "The suspects were believed to have ties to MS-13," he said. "I'm not sure why." Still, the reality is Swecker was before Congress because the FBI sees Mara Salvatrucha as a serious threat, especially in the wake of a several gruesome killings linked to the gang. For the first time, the federal agency has started a task force to go after a single street gang. The FBI's Robert Clifford, director of the MS-13 national gang task force, said intelligence suggests MS-13 members from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala are entering the United States because of campaigns against the gang in those countries. Authorities think Mara Salvatrucha carried out a bus massacre in Honduras that killed 28 people, including six children, before Christmas. The suspected mastermind of the attack was arrested in Texas, Clifford said. As the population of Central American immigrants grows in Oregon, Clifford said, it's just a matter of time before MS-13 establishes a foothold. "They're following immigration paths and exploiting their own," he said. "They act like the Mafia." Some subgroups, or cliques, have existed in communities for years without being detected, the FBI says. But given MS-13's ongoing battles with other Latino gangs, which are on the rise in Oregon, there would be signs of a turf war, Corno said. "If they were here, we would know about it," he said. "Definitely, we would know."
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 1.
#1. To: Mr Nuke Buzzcut (#0)
"MS-13 has a significant presence in northern Virginia, New York, California, Texas, as well as in places as disparate and widespread as Oregon City, Ore., and Omaha, Neb.," Swecker said. Heads up Oregon and Nebraska!
#2. To: robin (#1)
I notice they did not mention Illinois/Chicago. It really must be an oversite, imo.
I live in Oregon City, which the FBI mentioned. We have a few Mexicans here, but I think the FBI is full of crap about MS-13 being here.
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