Last October the Treasury Department designated MS-13 as a transnational criminal organization under Executive Order 13581 which freezes their U.S. assets and bans Americans from conducting business with them, and in a follow-up move has added six of the gang’s purported leaders to the economic blacklist as reported by Jerry Seper for The Washington Times.
MS-13 originated in Los Angeles, CA but now operates in at least five countries with more than 30,000 members. In the United States MS has so-called cliques in 40 states and about 8,000 members. Its money making rackets principally include drug trafficking and the flesh trade. In Northern Virginia 12 MS-13 gang members “have been locked up for child sex trafficking in the past two years” as reported by Pamela Brown for WJLA:
“We’re seeing most of the cases coming from MS-13 with regards to sex trafficking and we’ve seen a number of those cases from the past year,” said John Torres, Special Agent in Charge with ICE Homeland Security Investigations. “For us it’s a disturbing trend.”
It’s unlikely that MS-13 and its purported leaders will be significantly impacted by the Treasury Department move given their lack of substantial assets in the United States and minimal involvement in the legitimate economy.
Indeed, an economic blacklist would be much more effective against the New York-based Italian Mafia which for decades has successfully exploited the legitimate economy in order to launder its dirty money but the Treasury Department inexplicably refuses to designate these crime families and their members under Executive Order 13581 notwithstanding their dominant roles in the international drug trade.
Further reading that may be of interest:
Filed under: Government, Organized Crime, Transnational Criminal Organizations Tagged: Asset Seizure, Executive Order 13581, Mara Salvatrucha, MS-13
