The fight once morest the gangs continues to be concentrated in the metropolitan region, in urban and marginal areas, particularly in Guatemala City, Villa Nueva and Mixco, in addition to other localities such as San Pedro Ayampuc, San José Pinula and San Pedro Sacatepéquez.
The study Disconnection of gangs in Guatemala, led by Salvadoran political scientist José Miguel Cruz, research director of the Center for Latin America and the Caribbean at Florida International University in Miami, United States, and financed by USAID, determined that “gangs in Guatemala they are concentrated in the main urban areas of the country, especially around Guatemala City, Escuintla and Quetzaltenango”.
This exploratory analysis, carried out between 2019 and 2020, with 57 ex-gang members and 48 experts in the field in Guatemala, identified that the gangs are made up of neighborhood cliques, which allows them to operate with local autonomy and adhere to the norms and rules of organization, but especially in urban areas.
The report led by Cruz explained that “both MS-13 and Barrio 18 control territories through extortion, drug trafficking and violence. For gang members, such activities are critical components in the process of moving up the ranks of the gang structure.”
He added that “Barrio 18 and MS-13 have national councils made up of leaders imprisoned in the main prisons. The activities of the cliques are controlled by high-ranking imprisoned members who constitute the Rueda del Barrio —the neighborhood circle—, the highest decision-making body of each gang.”
“Each neighborhood clique operates autonomously from the others, which frequently generates conflicts between cliques from the same gang for control of the territories,” they explained.
And, in that sense, the Government reacted to the way it operated and because from March to June the number of criminal acts committed by these criminal structures grew.
The Ministry of the Interior (Mingob) and the General Directorate of the Penitentiary System (DGSP) transferred 75 highly dangerous leaders from Barrio 18 of the Preventive for Men of Zone 18 to the maximum security prison Fraijanes 1.
But this led to a rearrangement of the cliques in the streets and the panorama changed and became more violent, according to experts.
After observing events such as the one committed by three alleged members of Barrio 18, two 14-year-olds and one 17-year-old, surprised on Friday night, June 4, when they dismembered another 15-year-old girl, the security forces reinforced their Actions.
The macabre event occurred in an abandoned house on block 43, Rosado sector, Esquipulas settlement, El Limón neighborhood, zone 18, a few meters from where Shirly Cristina Martínez González, the victim, lived and who had an active Alba-Keneth alert.
There were also other finds of dismembered bodies in other places in the municipalities where the gangs operate, and which are where the power struggle between rival cliques increased.
“The gang problem in Guatemala is urban, something similar to Honduras, where they have better connected with drug trafficking, something that has not happened in Guatemala,” explained the expert on gang issues in Central America, José Miguel Cruz.
He added: “Certainly they are involved in the drug business, but more in drug dealing in urban spaces and they do not have as much interaction as in Honduras with drug traffickers.”
Cruz analyzed that in Guatemala the gangs are a hybrid of local, urban crime, in which extortion, drug dealing and territorial struggle predominate. “Of course, only in Guatemala have we detected the imitators,” she pointed out.
The study led by Cruz between 2019 and 2020 determined that “the majority of the gangs are concentrated in impoverished environments of urban places, in which state services, especially social services, are absent.”
“Women are limited to minor roles within the gang structure, and most of them cannot advance in the hierarchies of these groups,” they assert.
In Guatemala, youth are drawn into gangs by a combination of emotional deprivation at home and attraction to peer groups on the streets, the study cites.
While most gang members come from families where abuse is rampant and their parents or guardians neglect their children or are unable to supervise them.
“The gangs offer what no other community institution offers to the youth of these communities: a sense of belonging, protection, friendship and respect. They also provide material resources through criminal activities.”
The arrest count
A summary of arrests from the Specialized Criminal Investigation Division (Deic) and the National Division once morest the Criminal Development of Gangs (Dipanda), of the National Civil Police (PNC), revealed that from January to May 31 last they have apprehended 382 people linked to cliques of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Barrio 18, imitators and Whitefence 13 gangs.
This means, according to the graphs of the police institution, that 84 percent of the arrests have occurred in the metropolitan region and 16% in other departments, such as Escuintla, Suchitepéquez, Retalhuleu and Quetzaltenango.
Among the arrests are more men than women, almost double its members, as well as regarding twenty children and adolescents, between women and men, who have mostly been caught red-handed committing some type of crime related to criminal activity. of these groups: murders, extortions and retail drug sales.
According to official statistics, 270 of its members have been arrested from Barrio 18, distributed in 15 cliques that are disputing territories in areas of Guatemala City, Villa Nueva and Mixco, especially, as well as in the departments located on the coast. of the Pacific, through which the drug that enters from Honduras and El Salvador is transferred.
While MS-13 arrested 50 gang members from 13 cliques that operate in the same municipalities and areas, but have found places other than Barrio 18, so as not to enter into disputes.
In the case of the so-called imitators, those people who pose as gang members, according to the authorities, have arrested 60, most of whom are dedicated to extorting money in places where there is usually no presence of Barrio 18 or MS-13. .
The difference of this group is that it does not generate violence, and only threatens its victims. The MS-13 and Barrio 18 do resort to violence to collect extortions and kill those who do not pay the exactions, according to Deic investigators.
In the official figures, the arrest of two members of an old gang known as Whitefence stands out. According to a Deic investigator, these were Salvadorans, and they are close to disappearing from the criminal map of the gangs.
The operational areas
According to the Deic and Dipanda report, the largest number of captures have occurred in the metropolitan area of the department of Guatemala. In Guatemala City, between zones 5, 6, 18, 21 and 24, 129 suspected gang members have been arrested. While in Mixco there are 41 and in Villa Nueva 21.
In the case of the province, most arrests have occurred in Escuintla, with 16; Retalhuleu, 10, and Santa Rosa, Suchitepéquez and Quetzaltenango, 5. In each of these departments they also arrested one of the 60 imitators who operate and extort money in the country.
Departments such as Petén, Izabal, Huehuetenango, Totonicapán and Sololá do not report any capture of gang members.
The United States warned its citizens not to travel to San Marcos and Huehuetenango due to criminal levels and widespread drug trafficking; and to zone 18 and Villa Nueva, by the gangs. https://t.co/JEDCOl3vJg
– Free Press (@prensa_libre) June 8, 2022
the armament
The security forces seized 53 pistols, 18 revolvers, four shotguns, a rifle and five homemade weapons from the gang members arrested between January and May 31. In addition, 989 ammunition, 35 chargers, 11 vehicles, 23 motorcycles and 191 cell phones.
Most were arrested for committing crimes in flagrante delicto and for arrest warrants.
