Federal authorities arrested a leader of the violent Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang in Virginia on Thursday, Trump administration officials announced on social media.
The FBI, along with state and local authorities, took the 24-year-old suspect into custody in Woodbridge, Virginia, according to Fox News. He was identified as one of the top leaders of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang, authorities said without releasing the suspect’s name.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed the arrest in posts on X. President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post that a major leader of the gang was captured without giving specifics.
What is MS-13?
MS-13 is a transnational gang founded in Los Angeles in the 1980s by Salvadoran immigrants. After gang members were deported from the U.S., the gang flourished in Central America, growing rapidly in and around El Salvador, Mexico and the U.S.
Trump named MS-13 a designated terrorist organization. The gang has been responsible for high-profile killings, kidnappings and drug trafficking in the Americas, including on Long Island, the Washington, D.C., area and in California.
MS-13 engages in drug trafficking, smuggling, kidnapping, extortion and prostitution. Gang members have gained notoriety for being covered in tattoos signifying allegiance to the gang.
The gang — along with its Los Angeles-originating rival 18th Street — have been at the center of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s crackdown on violence in the Central American country. Thousands of people have been incarcerated in Salvadoran prisons as the country wages war on gangs, which has dramatically cut homicides to the lowest in Latin America.
Other detentions: Trump shipped them to El Salvador. Their families say their only crime was a tattoo.
Earlier this month, U.S. dropped charges against Cesar Lopez-Larios, another MS-13 leader, in order to deport him to El Salvador as part of a deal with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele.
MS-13 during Trump’s first term
In Trump’s first term, the gang became a highlight of the administration’s crackdown on immigration, particularly from Central America, and so-called “sanctuary cities” that limited local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration agents.
Trump called suspected gang members “animals.” The administration’s controversial child separation policy cited MS-13, with officials falsely saying gang members used children to cross the border.
More than a dozen MS-13 members were indicted in 2020 on terrorism charges relating to his alleged involvement in organized crime in the U.S., Mexico and El Salvador over the past two decades.
Reuters contributed to this report.
(This is a developing story and will be updated.)
