Central America’s ‘maras’ spread to Spain and Italy

The maras, criminal structures created by Central American migrants from poor neighborhoods in Los Angeles and which, more than 30 years later, the presidents of Honduras and El Salvador have declared war on, have been spreading to Europe and South America for some time, according to various reports.

A few days ago, a user tweeted that he had seen MS (Mara Salvatrucha) graffiti in the train station of a town in the south of Rome.

Also, this criminal group has been present in Milan for several years, according to an investigation by the Salvadoran media outlet El Faro.

In addition, InSight Crime reports that the Barrio 18 and MS13 gangs – known as “maras” -have been present in Spain since 2005.

Reports show that these members had fled to Europe from the “iron fist” policies that the El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras governments implemented at the beginning of the millennium.

That plan the countries implemented more than two decades ago is not much different from the emergency regime that Nayib Bukele approved in March 2022 and that Xiomara Castro would later emulate in December.

An article published in 2003 by envío magazine, an initiative of the Society of Jesus in Central America, described the “Mano Dura” plan as a project of social apartheid in El Salvador, considering that it stigmatized a category of Salvadorans: the marginalized youth, those in the worst conditions.

Detainees were criminalized for their physical appearance, i.e., clothing, tattoos, or behavior.

This same accusation has been received by President Bukele from different organizations, among them Amnesty International, who said that the government is committing generalized and flagrant human rights violations and criminalizing people living in poverty.

GANG TENTACLES IN EUROPE

The containment measures adopted by the governments of northern Central America to combat the phenomenon caused a significant exodus of “mareros” to other countries.

El Faro reported in an extensive investigation on mareros dispersed in Milan since the turn of the century.

Some left to rebuild their lives but began to long for the past and to join similar ones.

Since then, they have been involved in isolated acts, including property crimes, knife violence, and confrontations with each other.

Criminalist Ricardo Magaz said that “they are becoming increasingly violent” and have begun to profit from local drug distribution.

According to Spanish media, history is repeating itself with Bukele’s exceptional regime, which has led gang members to flee the measure and try to settle in Spain.

The National Police have been able to dismantle some of these groups.

In February, they captured a ‘clica’, as the initial cell of a gang is called, in Barcelona.

The group comprised Hondurans, a Paraguayan, and a Spaniard of Ecuadorian origin, all males between the ages of 18 and 37.

However, they were captured in February and handed over to the authorities.

Authorities said these alleged members of the ‘Mara Barrio 18′ reside with other family members in humble areas, sometimes in homes where rooms are re-rented.

Investigators think that the men arrested still had a “low profile” of violence before jumping to escalating aggressiveness, which usually happens when they get the nationality that would allow them to be expelled from Spain.

PRESENCE IN SOUTH AMERICA

The maras are spreading further afield.

The Salvadoran vice president Felix Ulloa said at the end of January that there are cells of the gangs persecuted in that country that are escaping to South America, specifically to northern Chile.

“We already have reports of some cells of the Mara Salvatrucha, which has settled in northern Chile and other southern countries are being displaced,” the senior official said in a statement.

To this version was added the statement given by the mayor of Alto Hospicio, Patricio Ferreira, who said in an interview with CNN Chile that “the maras are also installed in our commune, particularly in the illegally occupied lands”.

However, Chile’s Undersecretary of the Interior, Manuel Monsalve, denied to Chilean media that he had no information about the presence of these criminal groups.

“I do not have any information that allows me to affirm that there is a presence of the maras in Chile,” he said.

With information from Bloomberg