CRM-Mod 3 discuss.

Julia Keefe

This week I found a great website that provides information about gangs in Virginia. Virginia Gang Investigators Association (vgia.org) lists over 170 articles about different cases involving gangs that are either ongoing or were recently prosecuted.

I read about a Bedford County case where a MS-13 gang member was charged with brutally murdering a Lynchburg teenager. He was found guilty of capital murder. Kevin Soto-Bonilla (offender) was also charged with participation in a criminal act in association with a criminal street gang (VGIA). The article stated Soto-Bonilla helped cut the victims hand off and also helped abduct the victim from his home. The article doesn’t go into much detail about why this was done, other than just saying it was gang activity.

MS-13 is short for Mara Salvatrucha, but the criminal organization is better known by its abbreviation. Most members are from El Salvador or are first generation Salvadoran-Americans (VGIA). MS-13 started in Los Angeles in the late 1980s, but the group has spread toward the East Coast since then (VGIA).

The MS-13 motto is to “kill, rape and control”, according to the article. This is different than Mafia groups out of New York City. Mafia groups seem to be more profit-driven and the family relations is a big characteristic in the group. MS-13 seem to have more random violent acts, which aren’t linked to a crime being committed for money.

I also read an article about Shannon Sanchez, who had gotten away from the MS-13 gang. After hanging around with the gang in high school, she married and had several children. But as an adult, she became involved again with MS-13 and helped cover up a brutal gang murder (VGIA). Sanchez was sentenced in federal court in Alexandria to 70 months in prison. Sanchez burned the other offender’s clothes and gave the gang bleach to clean the murder weapon (VGIA).

Heather Payton

The Triads are an Transnational Organized Crime Group based out of Asia.  Hong Kong is their home base but have several small bases throughout the world, including America, Spain and Taiwan.  The Triads have been a developed organized crime group for over one hundred years.  I have not read anything that a member of the Triads must be Chinese, but, from what I read, they get members from Hong-Kong.  Those who are young and impressionable who have dropped out of school or seeking asylum.  They are known for human trafficking in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.  I have not read anything about high members being arrested but the younger receipts usually are.  The Triads put the younger ones in danger because if they get caught the will have a lesser sentence and are more disposable than that of leaders.  Not only is human trafficking a profit for them but more recently they are in the business of black market of smuggling endangered fish and high end seafood.  I would say they are like the Mafia with a hierarchal rank  structure, but more like gangs in how they recruit their members.

Another Transnational crime group is the Russian Mafia.  They are of soviet ethnic decent and much the like the US Mafia but less structured.  They follow their own laws that can be read in the link provided below. In the U.S, a high ranking leader,  Ivanov, was arrested in Brooklyn, New York, on June 8, 1995, for trying to extort $3.5 million from a Wall Street investment firm.  Not many high leaders ever get arreste and charged.  They are linked to human trafficking, using Ukrainian and Romanian girls.  They are promised more money, education and employment in the U.S. and then kidnapp and force methaphetamines and heroin into their systems to make them obey their laws.