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 News from Around the Americas | May 2005 
Mexico, U.S. Team Up to Fight Street Gangs
 Associated Press
| | The plan calls for the exchange of information on two of the most ruthless Central American gangs. |
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico - Mexican and U.S. law enforcement officials said Wednesday they will share intelligence and resources to fight Central American gangs, whose wave of violence has spread to the nations' common border.
Law enforcement representatives from the 10 Mexican and U.S. border states meeting in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, drafted a plan that calls for the exchange of information on the Mara Salvatrucha and the M-18, two of the most ruthless Central American gangs.
"When you have such a large number of criminals, like in the case of the Mara Salvatrucha, starting to gather at the border it becomes a national security problem," said Antonio Garcia, an assistant commander at Texas Department of Public Safety.
The gangs now terrorizing much of Central America and Mexico got their start in Los Angeles in the 1980s, becoming popular among Salvadorans who fled to the United States to escape their country's civil war.
A decade later, they had spread south of the border - in large part because their members were deported for crimes committed in the United States.
The plan includes police intelligence that will be available on a Web site for law enforcement officials on both sides of the border, investigative training courses and a program on how to prevent violence, said Antonio Garza, public safety secretary for Mexico's Coahuila. |
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