Nicaraguan police hand over MS-13 boss to Interpol in Managua

Nicaraguan police handed over Saul Antonio Turcios Angel, a Salvadoran citizen who is regarded as boss of the criminal gang MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, to Interpol under tight security measures at Sandino International Airport in Managua, capital of Nicaragua, Sept. 4, 2009.

Turcios Angel, 29, who is described by Interpol as "highly dangerous," was arrested last week in the northwestern Nicaraguan town of Chichigalpa. MS-13 has a vicious reputation and is active in the United States in drug trafficking and other organized crime.

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The Gangs of El Salvador: A Growing Industry

The two most famous exports of El Salvador are rivals. Unfortunately, they are also ferocious gangs: Mara 18 and the Mara Salvatrucha. They have exported their gang culture — learned by expatriates returned from undocumented existence in the big cities of the United States — to other countries in Central and South America, re-exporting their influence back to the U.S., moving beyond petty thievery, flashy tattoos and thuggish violence, to drug-trafficking and large-scale extortion.

For the last three decades, successive Salvadoran governments have tried to curtail the two Maras. In the 1990s the Salvadoran government instituted a policy that became known as the Mano Duro (Strong Hand), that saw thousands of gang members jailed. But Mano Duro has not stopped the gangs. Corruption at the highest levels of government has allowed many leaders to go free or conduct business from behind bars. Saul Turcios Angel, also known as the "Pitbull," ran a kidnapping and extortion ring as part of Mara Salvatrucha. He escaped from a Salvadoran prison last year and was apprehended in Nicaragua earlier this week. Turcios faces possible extradition to the U.S. to face charges that, while behind bars, he phoned fellow gang members in a Maryland suburb, ordering them to commit murders and other crimes.

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Mara Salvatrucha and Al Qaeda

The situation at the border now poses a grave threat to national security. Agent Mike Scioli of the U.S. Border Patrol confirms that the Tucson sector of the Border Patrol is facing a worsening problem with Mara Salvatrucha, a Salvadoran street gang that now controls the flow of arms, drugs, and illegal aliens into the U.S.

Two members of the violent gang were collared last week in Tucson and Nogales. Twenty have been brought into custody since President Barack Obama assumed the oath of office on January 20, 2009. But the Salvadoran gang is bringing more than guns, dope, and Mexican peasant workers over the border.

In the wake of 9/11, Mara Salvatrucha attracted the attention of top al Qaeda officials, who realized that the gang could be used to smuggle operatives and weapons into the United States. An agreement was forged between the terrorists and the gang-bangers. In exchange for safe passage across the border, al Qaeda – through its cells in South America – agreed to pay the Maras from $30,000 to $50,000 for each sleeper agent they managed to smuggle into the country with bogus matricula consulars.

"MS-13 Smuggles Muslim Terrorists into U.S.", Family Security Matters, 8/3/09.

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This is for Mara Salvatrucha

A new book was released yesterday on the MS-13 street gang, or Mara Salvatrucha. Amazon.com says: "Using all of the tools of a capable police investigation, [Samuel] Logan, a journalist based in Latin America, connects the fortunes of Brenda Paz, a Honduran-American teenager, with the ultraviolent Mara Salvatrucha gang. After family difficulties led Paz's father to send her to Texas to live with her uncle, she witnessed a friend's murder by her boyfriend, the leader of the local MS-13 gang, and fled to Virginia following her boyfriend's arrest. Logan probes the secretive Mara Salvatrucha, which funds its illegal activities through extortion, kidnapping, prostitution, drugs and theft, causing the FBI to label it the most dangerous of all criminal outfits. Eventually Paz informs on the gang about the national leadership and crimes, and the Feds unwisely stash the restless teenager in the witness protection program. Placing the reader in the midst of this story with harrowing detail, Logan writes of a young life wasted and an evil crime empire." Thanks to my gang intel buddies for passing this news on.

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