Mara gang member arraigned after attempt to enter Brownsville

A member of the notorious Central American gang Mara Salvatrucha was arraigned Tuesday in federal court for attempting to illegally cross into Brownsville last week.

According to Border Patrol records, Francky Sanchez-Solorzano, 21, was arrested by Border Patrol on Thursday night as he and 13 others crossed the Rio Grande into Texas east of the Veterans International Bridge at Los Tomates.

“Across the (McAllen) sector, he is the fourth or fifth (Mara) we have caught in the last several years,” said Senior Border Patrol agent Daniel Doty, adding that many others in the group were classified as “other than Mexican.”

Sanchez-Solorzano — from San Pedro Sula, Honduras — told Border Patrol agents he was headed to Miami and paid a Mexican smuggler 1,000 pesos to cross the river.

It is unknown why Sanchez-Solorzano was headed to Miami, but U.S. Rep. Solomon P. Ortiz, D-Texas, said intelligence sources reported a meeting between the Maras and al-Qaida as recently as six months ago. Ortiz called the Central American gang “dangerous” and said they have cells in major cities across the United States.

“I would like to compliment the Border Patrol,” Ortiz said of Sanchez-Solorzano’s capture. “This is very significant.”

Sanchez-Solorzano was arraigned Tuesday morning by U.S. Magistrate Judge John William Black, who gave him time served on a charge of illegal entry.

Doty said Sanchez-Solorzano — whose affiliation with the Maras became known through the gang’s distinctive tattoos — will be deported and returned to Honduras.

Sgt. Dionicio Cortez, a gang investigator with the Cameron County Sheriff’s Department, described Mara Salvatrucha members as “very deadly” and “ruthless.”

The gang is involved in illegal money-making activities such as drug smuggling, human trafficking and murder for hire, he said.

Cortez said the gang started more than 20 years ago in the streets of Los Angeles, but is now-based in Central American nations of El Salvador and Honduras with members ages 11-40.

“Many from the older generation were guerrillas in the civil war of (El Salvador),” he said.

Cortez said another Maras member from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, remains in county jail after being arrested in October for auto theft in San Benito.

“They’re not here to take over the gangs here because there are too many for them to handle,” said Cortez, who noted the gang uses the Rio Grande Valley as a transit point to other destinations.

Ortiz’s spokeswoman Cathy Travis said the House and Senate are hearing a bill that would increase funds to increase border security to combat terrorism and organized crime.

More on that El Salvador gang coming up over the borders:

Central American gang may have presence in EP

The Mara Salvatrucha -- a large, ruthless Central American street gang linked to a recent bus massacre in Honduras whose members have been popping up along the Texas-Mexico border -- may be making its way to El Paso, police said.

El Paso police had their first confirmed encounter with the Mara Salvatrucha on Aug. 15, when officers responding to an assault call in a Downtown parking lot discovered a tattooed member of the gang armed with a machete.

In May, Mara members armed with machetes cut four fingers off a rival gang member in northern Virginia, which has seen a wave of violence linked to the gang, the Washington Post reported.

Earlier this month, Mexico's top organized crime prosecutor, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, said gang members, known as mareros, were being hired as low-level gunmen for the Juárez-based Carrillo Fuentes cartel. Several men with the Mara Salvatrucha's distinctive tattoos were killed in recent months in Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo in apparent drug-related killings, the Associated Press reported.

"The drug traffickers hire them as killers, but without making them formally part of their organizations," Santiago Vasconcelos told the Associated Press. "It's a way of using their violent behavior in favor of drug trafficking."

U.S. Rep. Solomon P. Ortiz, D-Texas, whose district covers the lower Rio Grande Valley, said there was an added concern about the gang's presence along the border.

"We know from El Salvadoran law enforcement that al-Qaida is meeting with violent gang leaders in El Salvador," Ortiz said in a Sept. 2 news release.

Whether linked to Middle Eastern terrorism or not, the gang plague is considered a national security threat by authorities in Honduras and El Salvador and a potential threat to Mexico.

"They are in an area where they don't have much of a future and, unfortunately, they've gone into a gang mode," Werge said.

http://www.borderlandnews.com/stories/borderland/20050103-7469.shtml

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