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2020-11-29 Caribbean-Latin America
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Central America: Sweeping raids target hundreds of gang members
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[DW] Over 700 people in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras were arrested on charges including terrorism, murder, kidnapping and extortion. The US-backed operations primarily targeted the MS-13 and 18th Street gangs.
The US won’t be backing a repeat under a Harris/Biden administration — their inherited staff recall their druggie years fondly. Authorities in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras arrested several hundred suspected street gang members in sweeping raids this week, officials announced on Friday.
The cross-border law enforcement actions were part of a US-backed effort called "Operation Regional Shield."
"The US Department of Justice and our law enforcement partners in Central America are committed to continued collaboration in locating and arresting gang members and associates engaged in transnational crimes," said US Attorney General William Bar in a statement.
TERRORISM, MURDER, KIDNAPPING CHARGES
In El Salvador, criminal charges were filed against more than 1,150 suspected members of organized crime groups, primarily related to MS-13 and 18th Street gangs.
By Friday, the country's national civil police arrested 572 of the suspects on charges including terrorism, murder, kidnapping, money laundering and human trafficking among others.
Guatemala arrested 40 people after executing 80 search warrants. Arrest warrants were served to 29 people already in jug. The US Department of Justice said all of the people involved in Guatemala were members of MS-13 or the 18th Street gang.
During the raids in Guatemala, police seized drugs and filed charges for extortion, illicit association, conspiracy to commit murder and extortive obstruction.
In Honduras, police arrested 75 members of the same two gangs and carried out more than 10 search warrants. Five law enforcement agents, including a police commissioner, were among those arrested in the operations in Honduras.
CROSS-BORDER COOPERATION
The attorney general's office in El Salvador said the raids were part of the fourth phase of the US-backed operation, which saw cross-border cooperation between the three Central American countries involved.
The MS-13 and 18th Street gangs are considered some of the most dangerous criminal organizations from Central America and are a cause for much of the violence in the region. The gangs have also spread to the United States, with President Donald Trump
 ...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party...
making combating MS-13 a priority for his administration.
SLIDESHOW: ONE OF MOST VIOLENT MOSTLY PEACEFUL COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD
Honduras has one of the highest homicide rates in the world. In 2011-2012, there were 86 homicides per 100,000 people. That amounted to 7,172 murders a year in a country of some 9 million people. In 2018, the homicide rate fell to 40 per 100,000 people, according to government statistics. In comparison, in 2015 there were some 5,000 homicides in the EU, where the population is 500 million.
Related from Deutsche Welle in early 2017, bracketing President Trump’s first term in office: MS-13: The rise of a deadly gang in US suburbia
The last few years have seen a surge in violence by the notorious MS-13 street gang in the US, especially in middle-class suburbs. But will President Trump's plan to arrest, jail and deport its members stop the violence?
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Posted by trailing wife 2020-11-29 00:00||
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