#8 – Mara Salvatrucha

This gang originated in Los Angeles in the 80s by illegal immigrants from El Salvador. This demographic group cannot call the Police and the Mexican gangs know it. They were easy prey, especially the women and children who were raped, sold into slavery and forced into prostitution.

Like in the classic film Sin City, where prostitutes were forced to protect themselves from the Mafia. The community organized itself into an armed gang in order to survive.

Unfortunately, the Department of Homeland Security deported many of them back to a very poor country where each person makes on average just $3,823 annually. Needless to say, you must steal your way back to Guatemala, Mexico and eventually the United States of America and quickly before your family is killed.

You cannot protect your family by yourself. You must bring at least a dozen fellow countrymen and that is how the people smuggling business got started. Today, they are one of the largest gangs with over 70,000 members and growing much faster than other criminal enterprises because one of their rules is to recruit new members. Also, to be accepted you must kill a member of another gang.

It is only a matter of time before they are large enough to go to war against the Sicilian Mafia.

Their savage ways caught the attention of the Sinaloa Cartel and they were hired to go to war against the Zetas.

They routinely murder Border Patrol agents and Minuteman Project volunteers to control the border. They kill so many of them so quickly that the Department of Homeland Security cannot replace them fast enough.