MS-13 and The 18th Street Gang's Reign of Terror
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Welcome back, welcome back to the Underworld Podcast. We took a little break to kind of recoup for a little weeks after our first 10 episodes, but we are here now and we are pumped.

I am your host Danny Gold, I'm here with Sean Williams who, you know, he's still very British so maybe he doesn't allow himself to get too pumped unless it's like 6am at Burgain, but we're excited. Yeah, yeah, we're excited. I'm really, really pumped as you can tell from my voice. It doesn't really waver up and down, right? Yeah.

This guy, if you can see him on video right now, this guy is freaking losing it. There's like strobe lights in the background. He is out of control. Anyway, this is a podcast where we take you into the secret worlds of the global criminal transnational organized crime. You guys know what the deal is. So today we're going to go deep on MS-13.

which is kind of a subject that I've spent a lot of time reporting on. And let me just start off with a story about the time I got threatened by them while reporting in El Salvador. And when I say MS-13, I actually mean children. And not even 12 or 13-year-olds, who I think we can all agree are kind of terrifying. You see a group of 13-year-olds on the street. It's going to be scary. Yeah, teens, man. The worst. But I'm talking about five-year-olds.

So, yeah, we'll get to that. But I've done a bunch of reporting trips to El Salvador for Vice, for PBS, for The Guardian. I've wrote articles, did some documentaries. And the thing about reporting in El Salvador is when you read about it or watch it on video, it can kind of seem really scary for the reporter.

And journalists, like especially video producers, they love to play this up, right? They're going to insert some tense music under the footage of like them driving around with the police when it's really just like them driving around at night. You know what I'm talking about? You throw that instrumental under there and you look at the camera and you're like, we're in gang territory right now. It's like anything could happen. Anything could not happen.

But, uh, or, you know, you know how it is. Like, you get the guy wearing a balaclava and he's showing off his giant tattoos and you turn to the camera and you quietly mention, like, the entire neighborhood is controlled by MS-13, the most feared gang in the world. And the thing is, like, it is scary, but also it's kind of not. And that's just sometimes how it is when you do this kind of reporting. Yeah, I mean, like...

You're so focused on a job in these kind of situations, you don't even realize how messed up the situation actually is, right? I mean, if you kind of stop to think like, who the hell are these people who I'm trusting with my life, then you could kind of freak out really quickly. But then, like, who's going to get in trouble? I mean, who's going to go to the problem of like killing a foreign journalist in most of these situations? Like, they're more just annoyed that you're there or they kind of want to show off, right? So...

Yeah, I mean, look, it's not... When I'm in the Middle East, people are going to try to... Could potentially try to kill me. That's what they want to do. I'm like a fucking Jewish kid from Brooklyn, an American journalist. You're the prize package. In El Salvador, it's not that. They don't want the attention that killing someone like me, a handsome American journalist, is going to bring...

It's not going to bring the attention that they want. It's actually going to make their lives a lot harder. And like Sean said, they're more annoyed. And they also want to try to figure out how they can get like a hundred bucks from me. That's more what it is. I'm pumped about this because you know so much about this group and I know nothing apart from like

the news shows, and what the politicians say. So I'm kind of keen to hear it straight from you. Oh, you're going to learn. Strap yourself in. I'm strapped. I'm fully strapped. We're getting an education. So when I go to these neighborhoods...

everything is cleared out ahead of time. Someone usually like the fixture I'm working with, like shout out to Juan Carlos and Neil and even Manzano who are amazing guys. They've cleared it with someone in the neighborhood who clears it with the gangs. And this could be like a church pastor or maybe someone high up at an NGO who works in the neighborhood. You know, they don't always say yes, but if they say no, like the reporter, I'm not going to the neighborhood. And also it doesn't always mean that you're in the clear because

But mostly you're kind of in the clear. But I've been working in another gang neighborhood before after getting permission and a police patrol came by on foot. Things got tense and a gang member told us, like, you have to leave now. And that's when things can get a little interesting and maybe a little scary, but it's never, it's just never as insane as you make it look on TV. But usually, like I said, if you're a foreign journalist, you're kind of in the clear. And the rules are a little different, obviously, if you're a local, in which case, like,

You know, you're in danger. Yeah, you're in trouble. Right. And the thing I always worry about is if I do something stupid, if it's going to fall on the guys who I'm working with who are from there, I can get on a plane, right? And I'm back in New York in a week and I'm fine. I don't have to worry about this. But the guys I'm working with down there, something could happen to them.

And that's what concerns me. And I've also... Dude, I've been out there in a neighborhood where the gang members are like, okay, no pictures. And a journalist working for a very prominent newspaper, a very prominent journalist on the drive out was shooting shady shots from the car. And she got called out and they were yelling at her as we drove away. It's not cool, man. You're bringing attention on the journalists that are... The people who vouch for us...

the pastor or the other local journalists, it's not going to fall on us. It's going to fall on them. I was in a war zone once and there was some weird influencer that got on the junket for some reason in the embed and they had one of those selfie sticks and they were doing little TikTok videos or whatever to camera right where people were shooting along an alley and stuff. It was fucking crazy. I don't know how that happened. I mean...

Yeah. I guess people are stupid everywhere, right? And journalists are just stupid as anyone else. Yeah. There has actually been, there was a European reporter, I think it was French, who got killed. He had made one of the craziest documentaries about 18th Street Gang, who we're going to talk about too, just embedded with them for months, I think years even. And the documentary came out, this was five, 10 years ago, and then he came back.

And the same guys made a documentary about killed him. But for the most part, 99% of the time, you're mostly safe. Anyway, I'm digressing a bit. I know you guys want to learn about MS-13. We're going to get there. So this particular time with the kids, I was with Neil, who is like the go-to guy in El Salvador. Um...

And we had the permission of a church group who was helping to put on a community health fair. And one thing the gangs like MS-13 and 18 should always do is they complain the government is neglecting their neighborhoods, which is true, not providing them with resources or services. But at the same time, if anyone wants to go in there and do something good, whether it's a government agency or an NGO, the gangs just make it a nightmare to get permission. Which I mean, come on. You can't have it both ways. If you're going to complain about that, let somebody come in and do good. Anyway, I'm

I'm working on this doc I made with Neil about how the only way out of the gang life is to become a born-again Christian in the evangelical church. We have permission to be there, but you can't push your luck.

And unfortunately, we pushed our luck. We just kind of nonchalantly, not even paying attention, just strolled maybe like 20 or 30 yards away from the tent areas, like the health fair. And these three kids come up to us, seven, maybe eight years old. They're excited and they're kind of pulling on your shirt. And at first, I think they want us to film them. And instead, they kind of get Neil to bend down and they tell him something, but I can't make it out. And I'm like, oh, dude, what do they want? They want us to film. And he looks at me like, nope.

They most certainly did not want us to film actually the opposite. They issued a warning. They told them and then they pointed over there to like an area, maybe a hundred yards away where there's a group of people. And they were like those three gang members over there. They're going to beat your ass if you go any further.

So yeah, we did not go any further. We turned around and we made a hasty retreat back to the little health fair. God, it's kind of tragic how kids so young are lighthearted into that life, right? I mean, I remember a guy in Nigeria told me he got mugged by some 10-year-olds in a gang. It's pretty sad stuff how everyone is involved in these groups, right? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. I mean, these kids get recruited at nine or 10 years old. And some of the scariest gang members are like 14, 15. It's nuts. I mean, El Salvador, man, you just never know what you'll run into. All right. So we are here to talk about MS-13 and also about 18th Street, who is their rival, who just don't... They just don't get the same press, man. They just don't have the comms guy working it. But they basically function in the same way.

Uh, they've actually fractured into, into two separate gangs, 18th street Southerners and 18th street revolutionaries. We're going to talk about how they make money, how they operate, face tattoos, machetes, all that good stuff. But first we're going to bring you up to speed on how these gangs came into existence and how they took over.

And I like this quote from an Insight crime paper, which if you guys don't know them, they are like the premier crime reporting group in Latin America. They're amazing. Go to their website, look at some of their stuff if you have a chance. And this is their quote.

The gangs have persisted for four decades without a master plan, an all-powerful leader, or a reliable source of income. The core membership consists of teenagers who communicate mostly via text message. Its principal communication strategy is conveyed with spray paint. Its leaders are in jail. Most of its members did not complete high school. And the gangs...

They're just this wild contradiction. They're poor, relatively anarchic. They're also firmly controlled. They're mostly just street thugs, but it's recently been uncovered that the upper echelons are obtaining more and more political connections, taking bribes from mayors and even the president maybe, and sometimes coordinating with political powers over elections. They're broke. They're living hand to mouth. They're extorting bus drivers and papoose shop owners for dollars. Yet they're also making tens of millions of dollars. I mean, what's a papoose? Papoose?

What's that? Fucking this kid. Papooses are like...

like a flatbread sort of thing with beans in the middle, but sometimes other fillings and they're just delicious. I guess they're like the Salvadoran version of a taco, I would say. Or like a double if you've been to Trinidad. Investigate this, man. There's got to be a place in Berlin. No, I guarantee there isn't. But yeah, that sounds fucking amazing. I mean, that's a business venture. If you guys go to our Patreon, patreon.com, put some money in.

then Sean can open up a pooch shop in Berlin. Yeah. Yeah, he can pay off some of the Berlin clan so he can keep it running. But like, don't forget, patreon.com, The Underworld Podcast. Hope us, help us, hope us, hope us, we hope you help us keep doing this so we can actually... That was so smooth then. That was going so smooth.

Anyway, the gangs, man, they're confusing. Like even people who study them have said they often really can't pin things down because there's inherent contradictions in everything about them. But you know, let's try. So the gangs themselves, the numbers we get is that there's actually 60,000 active gang members in El Salvador.

With another 500,000 people in the country who are connected to them, whether family members or something of that nature. And this is a country of a population of just 6.5 million. That's crazy. Right. You can see how much the population is really connected to these gangs and how just sort of entwined in society they are. And the gangs, they actually started in Los Angeles, not in El Salvador. They are 100% made in the USA, baby. And

In the late 1980s, El Salvador was going through a brutal civil war between communist guerrillas and a right-wing government backed by oligarchs, conservatives, and the United States. And things got hectic.

I mean, the war actually really starts when a death squad kills an archbishop in his church while he's speaking. That's Oscar Romero. You guys can look him up. Amazing guy, liberation theology, all that. But that should give you an idea of how messy and just kind of massacre-y the whole thing. Massacre-y. Massacre-y is an adjective that tells you a lot about where we're going with this, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's par for the course, right?

So it's not that also the leftist guerrillas didn't commit war crimes too, but the right-wing government, military, and death squads just did so at a much larger level. So as the civil war tears up the country, hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans flee as refugees. And I think it was something at one point, 25% of the country who had done that. And most of them head to the United States and many of them end up in Los Angeles. And

There was already a small number of Salvadoran gangs in existence there, among them MS-13 and 18th Street, but they were small scale when this happens. Sometimes just a group of friends who party together. Seriously, MS-13 was nothing more than a bunch of dudes who sometimes got into fistfights, sold small amounts of marijuana, and listened to heavy metal. They had long hair, they wore ribbed jeans, they blasted Judas Priest, and they drew devil symbols on their notebooks. Basically like Sean in the 90s. Wait, uh...

Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Move on. They were like fucking characters from Fast Times at Ridgemont High and they were actually called the Mara Salvatrucha Stoners. That's like a great desert rock band group name. Yeah, that's awesome.

Things got, things changed. 18th Street was a little different. They had formed originally as like a Mexican-American gang in the 1960s, but they were actually very progressive, you know, inclusive, if you will, ahead of their time. Any nationality could join. I think they even had some Romanians up there at one point, but eventually they just grew to be mostly Salvadoran.

And all these poor Salvadoran refugees are arriving in Los Angeles and they end up in these really bad neighborhoods that already had a heavy gang presence. And LA in the 80s was crazy with gangs and gang violence. We're talking about the days of colors. Something like 600 murders a year were gang related. I feel like LA is so violent from what I see on the TV. Is it that crazy? Was it that bad at the time? I mean, the 80s and 90s,

It was probably... I don't think it was the top...

top murder place in the US. There are a lot more cities that were worse, but it had that gang culture, which is where a lot of this came from. And a lot of the crimes were gang related. But this is also, I mean, LA now is not even close to this, right? Like the murder rate there is very, for the US is very, very, very low. But yeah, back then it was wild. And these Salvadorans, they're the newcomers and they're getting picked on and attacked by all these other gangs, especially the Mexican and black gangs that dominated these areas. So,

So the Salvadorans are like, you know, screw this. We're going to form our own gangs for protection. And they grew and they grew as more and more refugees poured into LA. Some of them battle scarred, you know, they had experience fighting in a war, they were traumatized. And the Salvadoran gangs went from knucklehead stoners to something a lot more serious and terrifying, especially after they really got into the idea of using machetes. Shout out to Robert Evans and Behind the Bastards.

So the name where it comes from, Mara actually translates to like an abbreviation of a type of vicious ant. And it used to be slang for a small gang or group of friends. And Salvatrucha, they say, could mean slang for guerrilla fighters from back in El Salvador's history, or just Salva shorthand for Salvadoran. And Trucha was slang for, I think, staying alert.

The 13, again, disputed. Some say it was chosen because 13 was like this cool, evil number. Others as homage to the Mexican mafia, which rules all the Latino gangs in Southern California. MS-13 eventually had to pledge to them in the state, at least. And El Salvador these days, people are so scared, they no longer say the names of the gangs. They just call MS-13 the letters and 18th Street the numbers. I mean, so the Mexican cartels...

They're running the drugs and they have these entire scary gangs as their street muscle in CA or something? No, no. Mexican Mafia is something different. They're not a cartel really. They're a prison gang that just got so powerful that they oversaw everything there. So if you're a Latino gang in LA, you have to pledge allegiance to the Mexican Mafia.

And I think there's another gang that rules Northern California. I think it's La Familia. I'm not sure what the exact title is, but yeah, so that's California, right? That doesn't apply to New York, some of the East Coast versions of MS-13 or El Salvador where like they are the gang there. Oh, no. I didn't know any of this. This is fascinating. Yeah.

And 18th Street, it's a little easier to figure out. It's where the gang was founded, the name at least. It's where the gang was founded in LA. Most people just call them Diez de Ocho, which is Spanish for 18. But these gangs spent the 80s just growing really powerful in LA. They didn't really war with each other yet. They kind of operated like kind of cousins do in the same territory, but that would soon change. And this all comes from Stephen Dudley's book.

A new book, by the way, that just came out on MS-13. Dudley's the guy who founded Inside Crime. He's probably the foremost expert on MS-13 in the world. And I've used his work a ton in my reporting from there and also quite a bit in today's show.

So the groups coexist, but all this changes in 1989. MS were bigger now, powerful. They're competing for recruits with the 18th Street. And one night, a bunch of MS guys in a clique go to a house party and see a member who had switched allegiance to 18th Street. And this wasn't like now, where if that happens, bodies drop. Things were a little more relaxed. The MS guys are like, fine, but we have to beat you out. And how it works is to get into MS 13 and 18th Street, they had to beat you for 13 seconds to get in, 18th Street, 18 seconds. And that's just how they did it.

And now I guess they said to leave, okay, we just got to beat you out for 13 seconds. What's crazy is in later years in El Salvador, the way to get into the gang, you actually have to kill somebody. And the only way to really get out was to get killed. But that's another story. So the 18th Street guys are like, all right, go ahead. But things start going haywire. Other fights break out.

There's other stories actually that say the fight started over a woman, but all agree what happened next was that the 18th Street guys took a gun, they shot up the party, they killed an MS-13 member, and then boom. We have 30 years in a gang war, tens of thousands dead across half a dozen countries, and then

But also like imagine if this was over a woman, like for real, like the modern day Helen of Troy in the slums of LA. That's like some wild butterfly effect theory. Yeah, man. I hope Jordan Peterson is not listening to this episode too. Why is that like a big thing? Oh God, I don't know. This guy. Yeah. I don't know.

I mean, if we start talking about Jordan Peterson, whether it's pro or against, we will get a lot more of that. Yeah, exactly. I was thinking just that. So I'm going to go anti-Jordan Peterson and just see what flack comes back. Yeah, we don't want to do it. We're going to stay away from all that stuff. Anyway, we are knee deep in LA history, but what about El Salvador? Because that's actually where the gang is really powerful. All the horror stories you heard on Fox News about MS-13 being this marauding force in the

they're mostly not true. I mean, don't get me wrong. They're vicious and they're brutal and they've killed people, but they mostly only target other Salvadorans and Central Americans in really poor areas where there's a huge undocumented population. When I say it like that, it sounds like, I'm like, oh yeah, don't worry about them. They're only killing Salvadorans. I don't mean it like that. I'm not excusing it, but they were portrayed to be this insurrection or dominating the country or coming to your local suburb and running up in your house and murdering your wife, but that's not

That's not really what the case is. In El Salvador, though, they really are like that. And the people who come here to America, these undocumented people who are getting turned back, who were deporting, who were shut down on the border, they're the ones running from them. And we just like, it's really anger inducing to send, anyway, whatever, we'll get to that.

Back to the story. What happens is in the late 1980s, the US starts deporting gang members arrested for crimes back to El Salvador. It starts really small, but it really ramps up in 1996 when the government passes new laws allowing them to send arrested gang members back for even more laws that were broken or fractions or crimes that were charged. And what happens when

When you send a ton of criminals, some of them gang members, back to a country that's been devastated by a decade-long civil war that only ended in 1992, one where there's a real vacuum of power and weak state institutions, they're going to set up shop and they're going to do the only thing they know how to do, which is gang, gang, gang. I mean, so the US starts this civil war, starts the gang, and sends the gangsters back to the war zone and refuses to let their victims back

in, right? Listen, you limey bastard, okay? I'm not passing judgment. I'm just stating the facts. 1776, baby, okay? No, yeah, I don't think the U.S. actually started the Civil War. They were involved in funding it and fighting it. You had the Cubans and whoever else funding it on the other side. It was part of the Cold War, which the U.S. funded a lot of really dirty parties

So they were actively involved in training the leftists, not the leftists, I'm sorry, the right-wing death squads and some of those military officials. But I don't think you can say they started the war. But yes, they sent the gangsters back, not to the war zone, but to the sort of, I guess they did send some back, very small amounts during the war, but afterwards when the country was not really functioning well. And yeah, right now we are refusing to let the victims in. So-

Hundreds of thousands of criminals are sent back to the triangle, which countries, which consists of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Surprise, those are the countries with the really high murder rates where the gangs are really active right now. Nearly 100,000 alone were sent to El Salvador over the years. Obviously, not all gang members, but enough were. And while there were already small gangs there, they hadn't seen anything like these guys coming from LA.

Things started off small in El Salvador, but the LA guys, they really built it up. They got some money, they expanded, they got guns, and they started killing. MS-13 wasn't this organized, hierarchical organization, though. You know, they still aren't. They were all these different cliques, like Cruz, and there was very little organization in the early days, and there still isn't much now. But they did get a bit more organized, and that starts in the prisons in the late 90s, as Dudley explains. A lot of the OGs from the states get sent to prison in El Salvador, and they're

And they want to get organized. So they formed a group, a committee, and it's called La Ronfla. I can't roll my R's. I'm sorry, people. I can't do it. I could do it with the German on. That's about as good as I can get as well.

So they get organized, they institute rules. This is the year 2000 and they end up ruling the prisons, which is a powerful thing. Because I mean, some of the most powerful gangs in the US are ruled from prisons because guess what? Most gang members and violent criminals are going to end up in prison. So if you control there, you can kind of control things on the outside. Yeah, and like loads of gangs around the world are actually caught back from prison, right? I mean, like the favela gangs in Rio, like meth gangs in the Philippines that I've covered, like they're kind of big guys are all kind of

Pulling the shots from prison. It's crazy. It's like, I'll put some stuff in the reading list for the Patreons, actually. There's some cool stuff on that. MS still didn't have a ton of control on the outside or in the States for that matter. And they actually never really got this sort of uniform control. But then cell phones happened.

And cell phones led to them controlling everything. I think, you know, Dudley writes about how the first cell phone got into prison in El Salvador. It just changed everything. Because back then it was just hard to get messages out to have the meetings to control everything. And cell phones changed all of that, which I think is something a lot of us don't really think about.

What also happens around the mid-2000s, early 2000s too, is the government has finally had enough in El Salvador. The power vacuum is over. They institute what's called the marudura or the iron fist policy, a super tough, no-nonsense approach that is just cracking down on the gang's hardcore, arresting everyone, shooting shit up,

A few years later, there was a super iron fist policy. And by 2015, it was a super, super iron fist policy. I was going to say that as a bad joke. Cool. All right. No, it's legit, man. You can kind of see how things go and how they try to deal with things that doesn't really work. Anyway, the police go hard in the poor communities. The prison population skyrockets. Young poor kids get hassled by the cops or see their friends killed by them. They decide to join the gangs and the gangs grow and grow and grow.

Eventually, what we have is a situation like 2015 in El Salvador, the first time I went there, where it's the most violent peacetime country in the world. El Salvador, a country of just over 6 million people, had 6,600 murderers in 2015. New York City, with a population of 8.5 million, had approximately 350 murders the same year.

Yeah. At one point, there were 30 murders a day some months in El Salvador, which is wild for the numbers. El Salvador had a murder rate that year of 101. Chicago, which we hear all about, has a murder rate of, I think it hovers around 20, maybe 25. Wow. That's crazy. That is absolutely insane. Yeah.

But the thing is, these gangs, they're not the cartels. They're not even close to organized crime. Every time they try to really get organized, like from El Salvador to the States, they fail. They're not bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars. They don't function in the same way. The cartels don't even really trust them to be capable enough to help transport cocaine up through El Salvador because they're so wild and anarchic.

They're not special forces soldiers or commandos like the Sinaloa cartel or the Zetas or anything like that where they kill you. A lot of them are skinny teens just living in poverty. That's the other thing too. There are some higher ups getting rich, no doubt, but nobody here is buying these giant crazy mansions or private jets. Most members can barely feed themselves.

The level of organization doesn't compare to real organized crime groups either. Though they're definitely organized enough to control inside these communities. And in parts of El Salvador, they're basically like a state within a state. Anybody who enters a neighborhood they control, they know the second it happens. Everyone is on these WhatsApp groups. Everything is done through WhatsApp too, which is crazy.

Everyone is a lookout and a former antenna. Sometimes they call it from the nine-year-old on the corner to the old lady cooking pupusas like at her little market stall. I've gone to the markets downtown, like the big markets in San Salvador to interview people and nobody will talk to us on camera because there's always somebody watching.

And they're organized enough where they can ambush police officers outside their homes and kill them, though they rarely, it does happen, but they rarely take on well-armed officers face-to-face. Pretty dystopian now. I mean, I can't imagine the cops assaulting many of those, like, those 30 murders a day either, right? I mean, they are not getting solved. Also, like, it's super interesting, right? Because I did a piece recently on how, like, Telegram and other groups were helping freedom protesters in Belarus and stuff, and then, like, for every one group of them, there's, like,

a gang or like a terror group or there's like the next day you'll read something about how they're using like encrypted services to kind of just build these crazy tight gang networks all around the world as well so i guess it goes by first so i've been encrypted here like a lot of it's on whatsapp i mean there are death squads that operate over text messages and whatsapp and things like that what do you reckon they're like that's that that target the gangs it's definitely a punisher skull i reckon like every every death squad currently operating in the world

Like, is Punisher local? There's probably some, like, 50-year-old assassin that's just sending shit memes all the time. Everyone's telling him to shut up. God, the memes are awful. But these days, when you go to gang neighborhoods in El Salvador, you don't really even see the gang members. Seriously, I think there's this misconception that these guys with face tattoos are posted up on street corners with AKs, but that really couldn't be further from the truth. And it's all from that, like, damn Nat Geo documentary from, like, 10 years ago.

People don't stop when I talk about that documentary and how it just changed this entire perception and like, oh, the most dangerous gang in the world, which is kind of an exaggeration and all that. But first off, gang members, they're not really getting those massive tattoos on their face. That practice ended years ago. Because even the gangs realize that if you get a 13 or an 18 painted on your face from your chin to your forehead, that's a nice target for a cop or for an enemy. Yeah.

So the leaders told them to not do that. And they also told them to stop dressing like hoodlums. So these days, you're more likely to see a newer gang member with what would be considered preppy clothes and windswept bangs than to see one with baggy jeans and a large MS covering their forehead. I feel like I'm getting cheated now. I have this image in my head now. I've got these preppy school kids from the States in my head. I mean...

I want the tattoos. I want the guns. I want all this crazy shit. Oh, they're still there. I mean, every editor I've ever gone down there to make a video for was just like, bring me face tattoos. That's all any editor wants is like, bring me photos or videos of guys with face tattoos. And you'll find them in prisons or in jails or guys that have left the gang to the church and all that sort of stuff. I think of all the things you said in this episode, that's the most telling one about the media so far.

We're peeling the layers back, man. We're showing you how the sausage gets made. It's always been smashed. Yeah. In fact, aside from prearranged interviews and police roundups and jails and churches, there's only one time I think I've actually came face to face with an active MS-13 member. And it was what they call a palo barro, which is transit to the one who holds the word, local leader. I was with this church pastor who was trying to save gang members, convert them to evangelical Christians.

And we're walking through this extremely heavy MS-13 neighborhood. It could look like any normal poor neighborhood in Latin America. You've got people walking back and forth to their jobs, grandmothers with babies on their laps, teens playing soccer, stray dogs digging through garbage. Yeah, this is your long reads piece, right? Because that's so good. People should read that right after they listen to this. We'll put it on the Patreon. Yeah, this is... I did this for... And I did documenting for The Guardian on this. Two million views, baby. So...

We turn a corner and we're getting to this poor stretch of the neighborhood. It goes from cobblestone or paved streets to dirt roads and shanties with the aluminum roofs. And we come face to face, right when we turn a corner, with three members of MS-13. It's kind of like running into a bear in the wild. They're shocked to see us. We're shocked to see them. Everyone's startled. And also, they can kill me with sharp things. So, if they wanted to.

And at first, nobody knows what to do. The dudes are just like sitting on this dirt road in metal folding chairs, t-shirts and jeans, like not doing much of anything. You couldn't even identify them as gang members except for the MS-13 tattooed on the leader's hand between his thumb and his forefinger. And eventually, like the pastor just kind of clears it and we're free to walk, but definitely like a total mood-runner, you know? Yeah.

Really, really ruins the vibe of the day. And as we continue walking through, things are cleared, right? Like I said, it's not super dangerous, not super scary. But the church guys with us are still kind of looking over their shoulder and getting updates on what those guys are doing. So you never really know, even though sometimes you kind of know. I don't know, man. It's a contradiction. I'm just trying to tell it like it is. The gang members these days, they operate in the shadows. And they're scared not just of the opposing gangs, but of the police and the shadowy death squads that have been murdering gang members left and right.

They're usually made up of what's rumored to be cops and military. 600 gang members were killed by police in 2016. I think the number is that. It's close to that. The gang members also killed a few dozen cops, but it kind of shows you how things are going. And one thing I also want to point out too is that one of the safer areas to be in El Salvador is a heavily controlled gang neighborhood, right? Things only really get hectic on

on the outskirts are when gangs are coming up in territories against each other. When you're in the middle of a neighborhood that's been like MS-13 for 30 years and that has really expanded and they have full control, it's actually not that dangerous for you.

Well, except for MS-13. Whatever. You guys get it. You know what I'm saying. The crazy thing about these death squads is a lot of people in El Salvador actually support killing the gang members. People hate the gangs. The Iron Fist policies, people support. They have massive popular support. And a lot of people support the death squads. And I hate to say it, right? I'm not excusing it, but it's understandable in some ways. And let me explain that. We go down there, and a lot of Salvadoran journalists do this too. They talk about the human rights that are being violated by...

by the government in these prisons where they treat them like garbage, by the death squads. But the people who live in these neighborhoods who have lost family members and get tortured by the gangs, they want blood. For Salvadorans who've had to live under these harsh fiefdoms... Fiefdoms? Fiefdoms? Fiefdoms? Yeah. Fiefdoms. Like...

live under these victims for decades who have been terrorized by them, extorted, watched their loved ones get robbed or raped or murdered who are powerless, have seen their country torn apart. They don't have a lot of sympathy for the perpetrators. To some, the death squads are kind of like this natural progression of where things need to go.

I should also point out that in the poor neighborhoods, too, people are terrified of the police who also execute non-gang members who they misidentify and generally harass all the young people and assume they're all gang members. So is this thing literally all over the country? Are there any places that don't have these gangs in El Salvador? Is the whole place just like a giant battleground? Or is it all over the region as well? I mean, that's a good question, man. Yeah.

No, right? It's in poor neighborhoods. Yes, a lot. Middle-class neighborhoods, rich neighborhoods. No, they have to have security. It sucks though too because El Salvador is like a beautiful country, beautiful culture, amazing beaches. And you can go, if you're a Westerner, you can go there on vacation and you won't even have to think about this, right? Maybe you'll see some armed security guards at some nice hotels or whatever, but like, it's not going to, it's not going to get in your way. No MS-13 guy is going to come after you. Like go there. That means that

The backpacker communities, the beaches there, the surfing is incredible. It's like surfing paradise, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're not in trouble. I mean, I'll give you an example. This is, again, like a contradiction example. There's La Libertad, which is these nice beach areas there. And I went and you're walking on the beaches there. And I have a lot of bad tattoos. And if you're in El Salvador and you have tattoos, you're in trouble.

Because the gangs will come after you. They'll assume something or other. But I'm like, you know, a fucking gringo to the max. And I can walk on the beach with my tattoos with no problem. If you're Salvadoran, it's different. But what's interesting is too, is that like, there are like MS-13 and 18th Street, like beach gang.

who control the little markets on the beach and renting the chairs. And you see these kids on the beach and they're gang members. And they're like 12 years old playing in the waves, wrestling with each other. They've got dogs they're playing with. And it's wild because they just look like kids and they are kids. And like,

I used to joke about this with Neil because he lives right near there. And I was like, we could beat up these five kids like no problem. But they would come back and murder us with machetes. It's just like everything is just such a contradiction. But yeah, they control the rackets on the beach. And that's kind of the wrong thing to say, I guess, if I was making the point that you're safe if you go there if you're a foreigner.

I don't know, man. But it's hard, you know, because I talk about this. I go to countries, I report on the worst things about those countries. I could easily do that in New York. I hate that I give the impression that these places are wild. At the same time, you don't want to downplay how scary it is for a lot of these people in these countries when they're dealing with these gangs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure these places are incredible. I've been to Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and they're both unbelievable parts of the world. Like,

I don't know, man. It's pretty sad that we have to report on all the crap stuff all the time. Maybe we can do some reports on, like, I don't know, Tibetan mountain hideaways and stuff. That'd be nice.

Just do a side podcast called Nice Guys. And every one of the, every one of, every episode is like the follow up to this episode where it's just like the same communities, the same countries, but it's just like the dudes there who are just working nine to five and barbecuing in their backyards and having a good time. Yeah. Papooses. Sounds great. I would, I would listen to that. I don't think other people would. I mean, I'll make it. I'll report it if someone wants to pay the money.

patreon.com slash the underworld podcast we will if we if we get you know if we go up to ten thousand dollars a month we will make that podcast we'll go to the ends of the earth to do nothing for you uh so yeah who would who would join ms 13 or 18 right everyone knows what they do and who they are the gang war it's been going on for like three decades now the gangs have been operating for basically 40 years they're multi-generational you have children and grandchildren of gang members joining

But of all the gang members I've interviewed, nearly all follow this sort of typical road towards joining. They come from like broken families or absent parents, poverty stricken neighborhoods, few choices for a future, little education. They get hooked on drugs or alcohol pretty early. We're talking like preteen. And then you mix in these feelings of like wanting respect or a way out of poverty. And the gangs, they provide the answer. According to a paper out by Florida International University in 2017, which I think Inside Crime was involved with,

Quote, Salvadoran youths keep joining the gangs as a result of problematic families, lack of opportunities, and a heightened perception of the deprivation of social respect and affection in their communities. And like, it's pretty simple, right? Like that's, it almost sounds like the answer is too obvious. This MS-13 member who turned pastor who I interviewed told me, quote, when you're young, you need someone to listen to you, to respect you.

That's what I was looking for. People to fear me and respect me. And he talked about joining the gang as if they were searching for a family or some sort of structure. His parents were drug addicts or absent and he needed something. And Dudley too says the gangs can be thought of as a social organization more than a criminal organization. But in this paper, some of the gang members answered differently. And this is kind of the thing that I see a lot in gangs, whether it's El Salvador or St. Louis gangs,

Gang membership is about, quote, the excitement from hanging out with their peers and the development of respect and public recognition. And for lack of a better word, I mean, some join because it's cool and it makes them look cool and like tough. And then once they're in the gang and they're made to feel like the gang is the only thing that matters in life, you know, they get fully indoctrinated into their new family. It's the gang over everything. It's loyalty till death and all that stuff that sounds cliche, but it's very, very real. And yeah, in some cases, there are young people who are threatened with death or have their family members threatened with death if they don't join.

If you're growing up in a gang-controlled neighborhood, there is a decent chance you won't have an option or your other options will be flee or die. I mean, it sounds like a terror organization. I mean, it's just unsurprising that young guys would get involved in these kind of things, right? You could work in a factory making peanuts, living your life out and never get anywhere. Or you could have some fun. You could probably take a bunch of drugs and alcohol and go to parties and just be involved in these gangs. I mean, it's like, what's there to lose, really?

I mean, I've had people tell me, not in El Salvador, but in St. Louis, like they joined gang like to get girls. Yeah. You know? And like, it's just the truth. But the terrorism thing is interesting because in 2015, when I went to make this documentary for Vice,

They were actually trying to classify the gangs as terrorist organizations, even though they have no ideology and anything like that, so that they could charge any gang member with being a member of a terrorist group, which is crazy. And this guy, Raul Mahengo, who was famous for helping negotiate this truce that we'll talk about,

he was like, if that's true, then El Salvador has the biggest terrorist population in the world. Which I don't know if that's... I mean, I don't know if he's done the numbers in Iraq or Syria, but yeah, I mean, it's pretty wild. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's like that Victor Boot episode we did, right? And they pinned him down on terror charges because he was trying to sell guns to a fake FARC leader or something in Thailand. I mean, it's like... I mean, that's a little different than some Salvadoran teenager extorting bus drivers. True, true.

This guy will always with the Victor Bout defense. I know, right? God, I'm obsessed with that guy. Victor Bout, come on the podcast. Yeah, please. Or hit up that $1,000 a month Patreon. We got you, buddy. Sean will sing your praises to the world. I already am. Damn, what can I do next?

So one wild story about how their family and stuff, I met this pastor who was MS-13 and his son actually had been in 18th Street because he had grown up away from his dad, kind of hated his dad because his dad had been an alcoholic asshole. And 18th Street was who controlled his neighborhood. So at one point, when he was in the gang, he was on Facebook threatening his other family members because they were MS-13. Jeez.

Rough. Yeah, it's rough. That is rough. Yeah. The brainwashing that goes on. And another question people usually ask about MS-13 and 18th Street is how do they make their money? Because people tend to assume that they're drug traffickers, they're big time dealers, and they function like the cartels, but they're definitely not. Most of the gang's money, it comes from extortion. They call it the rent in El Salvador. They extort nearly every business, every market stall, every taxi driver. It actually started with the buses and went from there.

Everyone pays or they get killed. And even some of the bigger international corporations that operate in El Salvador, they're paying extortion money. Even the old women selling bread at the market can only be a dollar. But if you have tens of thousands of dollars of people giving you a few dollars a week, it's not a bad way to earn.

And it all actually started with the buses and the bus drivers. And even now, when the gangs want to prove a point to the government or to the newspapers, they shut down the buses or they do something heinous like kill a bunch of bus drivers or random people on a bus who set it on fire. Being a bus driver in El Salvador sucks. Yeah, I mean, this is not doing their ideas that they're just doing this because the government's forgot about the many favors, right? I mean, if you're shaking down the old lady down the road that sells bread for a few bucks, then you're not exactly like the Robin Hood of the neighborhood.

Yeah, their whole, well, we'll get to that, but their whole like, I'm the voice of the oppressed thing. Yeah. Like, no, you're the oppressor. Yeah, for sure.

I mean, to make money, they also steal. They do low-level street dealing, robberies, your usual criminal shit. Cartels have thought about working with them to transport shipments up to El Salvador, but I think they've done it a few times, but they generally find these gangs too anarchic and generally too risky and irresponsible to work with. And now, they've also moved into making deals with politicians, bigger money deals, and they figured out how to get involved in politics a little while ago, and that's bad, bad news. And that

kind of started with this truce I mentioned, the truce of 2012, which is still controversial today in El Salvador. Basically, the government made a deal with the gangs to ease up on some things, especially when it came to prison treatment, and the gangs stopped murdering so many people. The murder rates fell a lot, though disappearances went up, and some people thought,

the truce could be a new way forward, that the cycle of violence in response to violence could be broken. Other people said that the truce actually empowered the gangs, made them legitimate, gave them time to recruit and build up their forces and expand, and they actually killed a lot of people. They just disappeared them. The truce began to fall apart in May of 2013, middle of 2013, when this new justice minister, I think, or interior minister, kind of let it fall by the wayside a bit. And by 2015, it was completely over after they transferred these top gang leaders to a brutal maximum security prison.

where they had no contact and where they kind of got tortured and that's when things really went haywire and murder rates went through the roof. Yeah, I mean, this is like, this is, this is like really sounding like a terror group now, right? This is sounding like the Shabab and Hezbollah, like the kinds of deals that these governments have done with these groups because they got so big and out of control. I mean, this is like,

Sounds similar to me, like that kind of world. You know, when I first went down there, it was during this time, and I met up with this guy, Santiago, who was a regional leader of 18th Street. And he's kind of a media darling. I think the New Yorker in the New York Times did a big profile of him a couple years later and framed it like it was some exclusive interview. But I think a lot of journalists who go down there, and I'm talking to Santiago because he's extremely articulate and probably the smartest gang member you'll meet.

And to meet him, you know, you arrange with a shady go-between. We parked on the side of the road and just kind of walked down this hill to this little barrio.

little hillside slum and the dude is just waiting in this house for you. And these guys, a lot of them, they're not super intimidating at first. They're like 5'2", 120 pounds, wearing dad jeans. But then he takes off his shirt and he has these huge 18 tattoos on his body and his eyes are just super intense. And you realize he's been in the gang for like 15 years and he's probably definitely murdered a lot of people.

Anyway, he's fairly brilliant for a gang member, and he kept trying to rationalize all the stuff the gang was doing, all the killing, trying to portray them as some political ideological group who represented the poor, the nation, you know, because the government had abandoned them, which is nonsense. You know, these gangs don't have an ideology except for get money and terrorize people.

But he did make some good points about how their communities are abandoned, you know, so that the gangs don't know anything left there and they're feeling the vacuum of power and the place the government has abandoned. And he said to me, quote, we haven't had a reconciliation of those involved in the war in order to bring the peace and tranquility needed to reconstruct the social fabric, harmony, and a culture of peace.

He added, so how are they going to blame me for breaking and rupturing something that I have no fault in having ruined? Yeah, I mean, I get what he's saying, but if a dog's dying on the street and I kick it, I'm not going to stand there moaning that the dog was sick, right? I'm not sure he's thought this through that much. That's a good... Look at the metaphor right there. I mean, you're a writer. There we go. You are a writer. A wordsmith is what I prefer to go by. I didn't know where you were going with that, but that kind of nails it. Kicking dogs, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The other thing too is that the gang members love to point out is how corrupt the government has been. I think three of the last four presidents have been indicted for massive corruption involving millions and millions of dollars. And they're like, if these guys in charge break the laws all the time, why should we not do it? We're broke. Yeah, I mean, that's totally fair. If you believe that success trickles down, right, and crime doesn't, then you're a bit of an idiot, right?

In 2018, I spoke to the attorney general at the time I interviewed him. And it's really simple the way he lays it out. He's like, the gangs are supported by the young who join the gangs because they get no support. There are no opportunities for young people, so they join gangs. And what is one of the main reasons that there are no opportunities? Corruption. The

The money that could be going to their communities is stolen. It's not like as sexy to talk about embezzlement as it is face tattooed gangbangers, but it all adds up. And this is a quote from him. The public money that they stole from taxes could have been invested in schools and hospitals and creating jobs for young people. Yeah. I wrote a story about the claim that like, I think it was one in seven tax dollars everywhere in the world is lost to corruption. So that's like,

Whichever way you look at it, that's just an unbelievable amount of money. And these guys are like, they're hardly begging for mansions, right? They just want a way to live and stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty hard to tell people to obey the law when on TV. And another gang member I had told me this, this guy, Will Fredo, who's a converted gang member. He's an evangelical pastor now. He's one of the centerpieces of that article. He was like, I'm telling these kids to obey the law and they're watching these news conferences with these politicians.

away with $10 million and not getting arrested. What do you tell young people about obeying the law then? So where are things now? In 2015, the big thing was that the gangs were moving from cities to the rural areas where police pressure was way less harsh and the territory was up for grabs because the gangs aren't stupid. They know when to adapt. So they spread out all across the country. The murder rate in El Salvador has actually gone down considerably. I think we're looking at four, five, six...

as the murder rate per month, per year, which is fairly low for El Salvador.

The gangs, though, they're more intertwined in business and politics than ever. The newspaper El Faro recently revealed these deals the newest president, Nayib Bukele, I might have butchered his name, had made with the gang, calling it like an informal pact that was secret. Deals about who controls coronavirus assistance, some campaigning stuff, election stuff, prison restrictions. I mean, it's wild, but they figure it out. They adapt these gangs. How do you even begin to handle a problem like this?

I think the way to do it is investment in communities, but that doesn't win elections, and it takes years. We're talking decades for that to pay off, right? Voters want answers now. Tough talk and sending the police in does give voters, but that just creates this cycle again. So I think you need this sort of two-pronged approach that could work where it's like, you know, you don't go as hard as you can, but you stay hard in the gangs, but you also have community investment. Yeah, I mean, Juarez and Medellin did it, right? I mean, they've been like the two success stories in Latin America in the last few years. I don't know.

I don't know if that's the I feel like talking to Toby was like yeah Medin's actually heating up right now um so I feel like maybe we edit that part out we'll leave it in but uh I can be ignorant I don't yeah yeah I don't know I don't know how true that is sorry to expose you damn damn I need fact checkers I need fact checkers fact checkers baby um

So there's so many interesting tidbits. I could talk about this for hours that I'd love to answer, like how some of MS-13, they get deep into occult devil-worshiping stuff as a product of them coming from metal bands. There's two projects of drugs, and they actually feel like the devil is talking to them. Or how there are these rumors, there's stories of these villages in the mountains that are old guerrilla strongholds where the networks still exist. And they've managed to keep the gangs out by pretty much gang members would come there to make inroads.

try to set up shop and they would just kill them. These like old, like 50 or 60 year old former gorillas. Like to send a message. And yeah, it's wild, man. There's rumors. I think they actually do exist. Someone has done stories on it, but it's like, they're like, nah, you're not, you're not coming here.

or how the only way to really safely leave the gang is to become an evangelical Christian. And there are these pastors now with giant face tattoos who go around converting gang members and how the gang members, if you leave the active gang members, they'll watch you. And if you say you found God and they see you out at night and you're smoking a joint or out getting drunk or hitting on women,

Like, they'll kill you. Like, they keep an eye on you. I made a doc on that. Jesus. I reckon we should make a whole series on Central America. I find this stuff fascinating, man. So cool. Yeah, it really is. I mean, it's a fascinating country and there's so much to talk about with MS-13. But, you know, I think we've hit the mark right here. So, maybe we'll do a follow-up and I'll get into some of the evangelical Christian stuff if you guys are interested in it because people seem to love it. But, yeah.

Yeah, we are back, man. We took a break after doing our 10-episode run. We've got more episodes coming up. Sean's got a crazy one next week. Please subscribe Spotify, iTunes. We have a YouTube channel now that we're trying to monetize and all that. Patreon always helps. Patreon.com slash The Underworld Podcast. I don't even care if you listen to interviews. Just throw us some cash, man. Help us out here. Come on, guys. Until next time.

Peace.

so

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