The alleged leader of the violent MS-13 street gang on the East Coast has been arrested in Virginia, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Thursday.
Bondi lauded the the early morning arrest of the 24-year-old man from El Salvador, who was described as one of MS-13’s top three leaders in the United States, as a major victory in the Trump administration’s effort to crack down on a gang known for brutal violence and extortion.
The Justice Department did not immediately release his name or detail the charges against him. Bondi said he was living in the U.S. illegally. It was unclear whether he was facing federal criminal charges or had been taken into custody by immigration officials.
The administration promoted the arrest as part of its effort to fulfill campaign promises to quash illegal immigration and eliminate gangs. MS-13 gang, or Mara Salvatrucha, was one of eight Latin American criminal organizations declared foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump administration last month.
In the past decade, the U.S. Justice Department has intensified its focus on MS-13, which originated as a neighborhood street gang in Los Angeles, but grew into a transnational gang based in El Salvador. It has members in Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico and thousands of members across the U.S. with numerous branches, or “cliques.”
The 2016 killings of two high school girls, who were hacked and beaten to death as they walked through their neighborhood on New York’s Long Island, focused national attention on the gang. Nisa Mickens, 15, and Kayla Cuevas, 16, friends and classmates at Brentwood High School, were killed with a machete and a baseball bat by a group of young men and teenage boys who had stalked them from a car. More killings followed in the coming months.
President Donald Trump has blamed the violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies. In his first term as president, Trump promised an all-out fight against MS-13, saying he would “dismantle, decimate and eradicate” the gang.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.