The MS13 Moves (Again) to Expand on US East Coast

Local police and justice officials are convinced that the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) has strengthened its presence along the East Coast of the United States. The alarm follows a recent spate of violence -- of the type not seen in a decade -- which included dismembered bodies and the murders of several youths. Investigations also show an increase in communications betweenMS13 members incarcerated in El Salvador and gang cliques in Massachusetts, Virginia, New York, New Jersey and Maryland. And they illustrate that the incarcerated gang leadership has given explicit orders for the cells in those areas to take back the East Coast.

On December 13, 2015, José Adán Martínez Castro, alias "Chucky," called a meeting with several other gang leaders in Richmond, the Virginia state capital, which is about 175 kilometers south of Washington, DC. At least two dozen members of various gang cliques attended, so they could receive their marching orders from Chucky, the designated signal caller of the gang.

Beyond taking care of concrete issues such as the dispute between two Massachusetts cliques, Chucky (pictured below) took time to explain a key directive that had begun in mid-2015. It came from El Salvador's maximum security prison where the majority of the gang's leaders were then incarcerated. And that order was very clear: expand the gang, develop it throughout the US East Coast via an increased presence on the streets, all with the goal of providing more profits to the gang's members in El Salvador.

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