MS-13 Killing Raises Questions About How To Handle Transnational Threat Groups

Written By: Preston Panetti and Dominic Smith

On March 6, 18 year old Carlos Otero-Henriquez was lured into a vehicle by six members of the Mara Savatrucha-13 (MS-13) gang. Under the impression that he was headed to a party. The police later found Carlos’s body at a rock quarry near Harpers Ferry in West Virginia. The group then dumped his body into a nearby ditch.

Carlos was stabbed more than 50 times and murdered over his apparent connection to the MS-13’ rival the 18^th Street or Barrio-18 gang.

The MS-13 gang developed in  Los Angles in the 1980s, following the end of civil wars taking place throughout Central America. The influx of refugees fleeing conflicts in Guatemala ,Nicaragua and El Salvador provided a large community from which MS-13 could both hide among, as well as victimize.

The gang was originally composed of immigrants from El Salvador, many of them former guerillas with the communist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). FMLN is currently the ruling political party of El Salvador, with which MS-13 maintains close ties. Some FMLN leaders provide the gang with international connections, including to the Venezuelan government and the Colombian terrorist organization, The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). MS-13 is believed to have 10,000 members in the US alone across 46 states with another 30,000-50,000 members in Central America.

The gang leaders in El Salvador maintain effective command and control of U.S. based “cliques” through a process known as, “La Programma.” La Programma provides direct control between gang leaders in Central America and MS-13 members on American streets. According to the U.S. Justice Department “La Programma” has directed U.S. MS-13 members to exercise increasing amounts of violence in order to secure territory.

The MS-13 gang is the only street-level gang referred to as a transnational criminal organization by the U.S. Government.

The MS-13 gang  produces approximately 31.2 million dollars in revenue a year, primarily from drug and human trafficking, with sidelines in money laundering and prostitution.

The MS-13 gang have become allies with the Los Zetas, Surenos, and the Sinaloa Cartels, which control drug trafficking routes into the United States from Mexico.

Arch rivals of MS-13 include Barrio 18 and their 50,000 members they have nationwide. The killing of the 18-year-old in Loudoun County had to do with the relationship between Barrio 18 and MS-13 because Carlos Otero-Henriquez was believed to have been a member of Barrio 18.

Recently Attorney General Jeff Sessions has raised the specter of designating MS-13 as a terrorist organization. While classifying MS-13 as a terrorist organization would provide more focus and resources to the effort, it does not seem to accurately reflect the current nature of the group, which is a criminal enterprise.

While a terrorism designation for MS-13 may be stretch, it is clear that the U.S. needs to make a more concerted effort to respond to what the recent U.S. National Security Strategy identified as “Transnational Threat Organizations,” which includes both terror groups and criminal organizations like MS-13. The proposed Trump Administration strategy stresses that such organizations rely on exploiting an open American society through loose network or confederations using encrypted or secure communications and taking advantage of access to territory within fragile states or ungoverned spaces. These challenges are magnified in cases where such groups have state sponsorship.

As a result, the U.S. must focus on stripping these advantages from Threat groups if they are to effectively deal with an organization like MS-13. This includes taking legislative steps to prevent transnational gang members from taking advantage of lax citizenship or immigration laws. The effort will also require working with willing U.S. allies in Central America, as well as pushing back against countries which cooperate or provide safe-haven with MS-13, possibly by sanctioning individual members of political parties or governments which facilitate such behavior.