In 2004, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) created the MS-13 National Gang Task Force, which facilitates cooperation among local and state law enforcement agencies in order to dismantle MS-13. The strategies of the Task Force include the deportation of Mara Salvatrucha members to their home countries, an effort which has instead ...

US authorities say Mancía is a “corredor,” or “runner,” who responds to a powerful top-echelon leader, or “ranflero,” inside the gang’s hierarchy in El Salvador. The indictment says the Salvadoran leaders have spurred other parts of the gang along the East Coast to sell drugs, send them money, and even murder rivals and suspected ...

Mara Salvatrucha 13, or MS-13, is a transnational, mainly Hispanic, street gang notorious for its adherence to a methodology of extreme violence to enforce fear and establish street credibility.

The MS 13 gang is known to follow a certain organization or hierarchy structure on the basis of which it functions. Former members of the gang have provided the police a breakdown of the pay scales and the rankings which proves that the gang is strict and sophisticated in appointing people on these levels.

MS13: Hierarchy vs. Federation. On December 13, 2015, MS13 gang leader Edwin Mancía Flores, alias “Shugar,” made a phone call from a prison in El Salvador. On the other end of the line was José Martínez Castro, alias “Chucky,” the head of what the gang hierarchy refers to as the “East Coast Program.”