Are Central America's 'Maras' Spreading South?
In recent years, officials have expressed increasing concern about the
influence of Central American
street gangs, known as “maras,” in South America; but while street gangs are on the rise in
the region, they are a different beast.
On May 25 last year, 19-year-old Peruvian Oscar Barrientos shot and
killed his father in their home in Callao, a
city just west of Lima.
When Peruvian police arrested him last month, however, his confession was less
shocking than his reported motive. According to officials, Barrientos considered
himself a member of the Mara Salvatrucha -- also known as MS-13 -- and may have
killed his father as part of an initiation rite into the gang (see photo,
above, of his tattooed lower lip). This revelation set off a wave of
speculation in Peru on the
influence of the Central American
street gang in the country, and prompted local
police to claim that Callao
is home to at least one MS-13 crew of about 20 individuals.
Alarm over the spreading influence of Central American “maras” is
nothing new. Groups like MS-13 and their rivals, Barrio 18, have expanded
across Central America, as well as operating in Mexico
and the United States.
In recent years, analysts have become concerned about the potential for their
growth in South America. Since as far back as
2005, US law enforcement
officials have been warning that cells of the Mara Salvatrucha have sprung up
in Ecuador, and there have
been reports of members of both the MS-13 and Barrio 18 in countries as distant
as Bolivia, Venezuela and even Argentina.
But while there may be small cells active in these countries, these
groups do not pose anything like the same menace that they do in Central America. Claims to the contrary overlook a
primary feature of the maras’ history: the fact that they first formed in the US, and that their spread throughout Central
America is due mostly to a wave of deportations of gang members from the US that began
in the 1990s.
Both MS-13 and M-18 began as small scale street gangs made up of mostly
Central American (and some Mexican) migrants in the “barrios” of Los Angeles in the late
1980s. They eventually became some of the most powerful gangs in the California prison
system. By the end of the 1990s, the US started to see these groups as a
serious criminal threat. Partly as a result, the Clinton administration
significantly strengthened US deportation policies, beginning to send large
numbers of foreign-born convicts back to their home countries.
This resulted in a spike in the number of gang members being sent to El Salvador, Honduras,
Guatemala,
and elsewhere. By some estimates, as many as 20,000 criminals were sent to Central America between 2000 and 2004, and the trend has
continued to this day. Sources in US
law enforcement have told InSight Crime that around 100 ex-convicts are
deported every week to El
Salvador alone.
But because South American migrants never formed a significant portion
of the membership of these LA gangs, large-scale maras are not likely to
develop south of the Darien Gap. However, this is not to say that domestic
gangs are not a major threat to security in South America.
Countries across the continent are seeing a steady rise in the incidence of
homicides, extortion, drug distribution, and kidnapping, mostly driven by urban
street gangs.
In countries like Colombia
and Brazil,
which are plagued by more organized criminal groups, the problem is more
complex. These organizations often “subcontract” street gangs to serve as their
enforcers, using them to cement their control over urban areas. Like the groups
in the US,
many South American gangs use prisons as a kind of home base and recruiting
ground. Prisons in Venezuela,
Brazil and Bolivia are
often almost entirely controlled by the gangs themselves, and it is not
uncommon for gang leaders to run their organizations from behind bars.
South
American street gangs may
not be as notorious as Central America’s
maras, but they pose a significant threat to security. What’s more, it could be
set to worsen. UN officials have warned of a surge of cocaine consumption among
youths in South America, led by Uruguay,
Chile and Argentina. With
the domestic market rising, the incentive to control it is higher, meaning that
gang violence in the region could become even more serious.
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