Cameron Conaway believes recent measures to combat the gang must be part of comprehensive reform
October 12, 2012: The US Treasury Department has designated the street gang Mara Salvatrucha, more commonly known as MS-13, as a transnational criminal organization. According to the official Treasury Press Release:
“MS-13 is being targeted for its involvement in serious transnational criminal activities, including drug trafficking, kidnapping, human smuggling, sex trafficking, murder, assassinations, racketeering, blackmail, extortion, and immigration offenses.”
Attacking the roots of a gang’s financial systems, when coupled with on-the-ground enforcement, is often a powerful way to combat organized crime. Aside from these measures making all financial transactions more difficult, it also could force MS-13 into a mistake whereby they inadvertently expose sensitive information.
David S. Cohen, Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, stated:
“MS-13 is an extremely violent and dangerous gang responsible for a multitude of crimes that directly threaten the welfare and security of U.S. citizens, as well as countries throughout Central America. This action positions us to target the associates and financial networks supporting MS-13, and gives law enforcement an additional tool in its efforts to disrupt MS-13’s activities.”
MS-13 – Capitol Killer, a History Channel documentary:
Salvadorian immigrants began MS-13 in Los Angeles as a protection mechanism against the gangs already present. But year-by-year the gang grew in size and became more offensive, more international and totally willing to adapt to whatever crime presented the highest payout with the lowest risk (as evident in their current human trafficking involvement). In 2004 the FBI formed the MS-13 National Gang Task Force to tackle MS-13 on a variety of levels. This new designation, however, will grant the US Treasury Department not only the power to freeze any financial assets from the gang or its members, but will also prohibit entire financial institutions from doing business with them.
While the effort has been lauded by many, it’s equally important to recognize that this effort must be incorporated into a wide-reaching platform that includes everything from providing at-risk youth with better educational opportunities (as early in life as possible) and a continued effort to reform the criminal justice system into one that stops making criminals worse and instead strives to rehabilitate and carefully reintegrate them back into society. The former is universally recognized but often comes down to a lack of funding, whereby the latter is an issue that the public must begin to embrace.
Our first instinct is to punish criminals and punish them hard, but we have failed year-after-year, and despite an incredibly huge body of international academic research, to realize that while being tough on crime is great, being too tough on criminals often creates absolute monsters. This results in a cycle of crime where a dent on one side merely creates a protrusion on the other.
—Photo: Luis Romero, AP
The way I see it, it is a win-win situation for the US Treasury Department. They saw the influence and muscle Mara Salvatrucha was throwing around and knowing very well the amount of money generated by their criminal enterprises, well, it was just natural to hit them where it hurt$. Win-win, because all assets confiscated will be used as best considered fit, and in the process they look good fighting these bad guys which until now were doing their “own thing” without paying dues, and powering over rivals by sheer maniacal force. I have no sympathy for MS13, but I… Read more »
Dear Dan,
Brilliant insights here. I agree with you on all fronts. Changing the prison system as we’d like will be a monumental undertaking, especially compared to simply distributing birth control (though that will come with its difficulties as well).
I’d love to learn more about your “personal experience” if ever you’re up for sharing.
Thanks again, Dan. Much appreciated.
~Cameron
I wish them all the best with this endeavor and hope it proves fruitful in fighting resurgence of slavery, I opt not to provide it the nicety of ‘human trafficking’, and all of the violence and depravation that comes with it. I agree whole-heartedly that efforts need to be made to help reintegrate inmates back into society, but from personal experience, believe it needs to start from day one of incarceration by providing opportunities to provide the basic skills needed to be successful upon return to society. This such as: valuing education; showing up on time; following directions; earning opportunities;… Read more »
J.A.,
I’m equally interested to learn the “hows” of this. My research revealed only phrases like “stricter bank account rules.” I’m not sure if this is because everyone else, like us, is confused, or if the intelligence agencies simply don’t want to leak any of their methods. Either way, MS-13 has large sums of money and they’ve used bank accounts many times before. One method may be something relating to what WellOkayThen said above: profiling individuals based on a combination of their facial tattoos and ethnicity. If you dig up any other information please do post here. Thanks!
~Cameron
Laudable no doubt,,but how does this work . “but will also prohibit entire financial institutions from doing business with them.”?
Ideally I’d love to see a few money laundering bankers do real time- but honestly I suspect that a lot of El Salvadorian looking peopl are going to not get bank accounts.
The gang could just do what the big players do and use offshore Caribbean accounts. It works for all sorts of “evildoers,” so why not a Salvadoran gang? Dare the U.S. gov’t to go after offshore banks, which is something it’s very squeamish about doing because of the political fall-out.
It’s so helpful when the bad guys make their membership completely obvious by putting it right on their faces. They literally have “gang member” written on their faces. I wish international terrorists would do this. It would make law enforcement SO much easier.