Two Of Latin America's Deadliest Gangs Join Forces

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) - _ Hardened in the streets and prisons of California and deported in the 1990s to the Central American countries where they were born, the members of the Mara Salvatrucha street gang swiftly grew into a force of heavily tattooed young men carrying out kidnappings, murder and extortion.

Now, Guatemalan authorities say, they have begun to see new and disturbing evidence of an alliance between the Maras and another of the most feared criminal organizations in Latin America _ a deal with the potential to further undermine that U.S.-backed effort to fight violent crime and narcotics trafficking in the region.

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