All language subtitles for United.Gangs.Of.America.S01E02.1080p.WEB.h264-BAE

♪♪

-One thing you learn
when you do these cases

is how truly organized
the gangs are.

Anybody in the gang understands
they don't have much time.

[ Shouting in unison ]

-It's all-out war. June 2023.

A women's prison in Honduras
is in flames.

The prison housed women from

two of the most savage gangs
in the world,

MS-13 and their sworn enemies,
18th Street.

With bad blood at a fever pitch
between the two gangs,

the prison is
a ticking time bomb.

18th Street had been planning
to launch a brutal takeover

of the prison and kill
female MS-13 gang members.

-The authorities
had been receiving warnings

from the prisoners for months,

if not years,
that trouble was brewing.

-The female prison was falling
apart and ripe for corruption.

-These prisons are
not like the state prisons here.

Many of them
are older structures.

They're padlocks, bars,

and the guards control
the perimeter,

but gang members run
the prison on the inside.

-18th Street gang members
had overcome the guards

from the prison gate
before launching the assault.

Then early in the morning
on June 20,

they stormed the prison.

It's an ambush.

-They let themselves
out of their cages

and went to
the part of the prison

where the MS-13 were housed.

They tried to get in
through a bathroom

and found that bathroom
blocked by mattresses

that had been stacked
against the entrance.

So they set fire
to those mattresses

and around a dozen women died

inside that bathroom,
burned to death.

-Members of the Barrio 18 gang

opened fire on women
in their cells.

Government officials say most
of the victims burned to death,

while others had been shot
or stabbed.

-Women from Barrio Dieciocho
used screwdrivers

and other improvised shivs
and knives

to stab women from the MS-13
to death.

They killed some 46 women
from the MS-13 gang.

-Police say they recovered
18 pistols and assault rifle

and two grenades.

-1.5 million men and women are
incarcerated in Latin America.

Some are the most dangerous gang
members of the notorious MS-13,

deported from the US.

For the past three decades,

the two gangs have
been battling it out in LA.

-MS-13, compared to 18th Street,
they are very, very violent.

MS-13 use machetes
as a weapon of choice,

because they are more painful
to the victim.

When they cut an arm
or leg or ear,

they wanted to make
the people suffer.

-They took turns hacking the
victim to death with a machete.

-The victim was dismembered,

and one of the defendants
allegedly carved out his heart.

-MS-13 is particularly violent.

They like to knife them
and cut them.

-Today, MS-13
has over 40,000 members

in at least seven countries
globally.

-Tell 'em what gang you.
-MS-13.

-And in the last 10 years,

the women of MS-13 have been
a rising threat in gangland.

-The female prison population
has surged in recent years,

significantly.

-The male-dominated gang
is Americanizing

by allowing female members
more and more.

-Women are becoming
increasingly involved

in gang activity.

-From decoys to killers
to masterminds.

♪♪

-Places MS will lead you --
jail,

hospital, or a cemetery.

♪♪

♪♪

-MS-13,
also known during that time

as the Mara Salvatrucha
Stoners,

starts out at
the bottom of the food chain.

-If you want to study MS-13,
you don't go to El Salvador.

You go to Los Angeles.

That's where
the culture was born.

-MS-13 began as a few
immigrant Salvadorian kids

no older than 18, who
had escaped war and violence,

hanging out at their
7-11 headquarters.

Most of these kids
just wanted to smoke weed

and listen to heavy metal.

Instead of calling
themselves a gang,

they were just
a group of stoners.

-They started out
to be stoners.

They were heavy metal kids
with long hair

and looked like
rock 'n' roll people

and worshiped Satan.

That's why their hand sign is
the horns of the devil.

-Even though these stoners
aren't looking for a fight,

the established gangs of LA are.

-And they were confronted

by Mexican American
street gangs,

and Mara Salvatrucha 13

formed as a self-defense group

against the other
Latino Street gangs.

-"Mara" meaning "gang,"

"Salva" referring to
El Salvador,

"trucha" meaning "vigilant,"
and the number 13

to show allegiance
to the Mexican Mafia.

MS-13.

Everything changes
when the Olympics come to LA.

-The symbol
of the next Olympics

is written on the skyline
of the host city.

-Reagan calls for LA
to be a safe place,

so leaders
of various street gangs,

MS-13's biggest threat
to expansion,

are rounded up
and sent to jail.

-I have instructed agencies
of the federal government

to cooperate fully with
Olympic and local officials

to ensure the safety
of all participants.

-Law enforcement decided

that they wanted to
clear the streets,

and so they rounded
up the OGs or veterans

or the older leadership
of various street gangs

throughout Southern California.

The problem with this plan

was it was short-sighted
and misguided,

because it created
a vacuum within the gangs.

-But MS-13 flies under
the radar and fills the void.

-MS is constantly trying
to maintain its reputation

and increase its reputation,

as well as its numbers and its
control over territory and turf

and its criminal enterprise.

And so,
during the 1984 Olympics,

the mascot, Sam the Eagle
of the Olympics,

they adopted this
as the mascot for the gang.

-Sam the Eagle, the Olympic
mascot, was still smiling today.

-In 1984, MS-13
had around 2,000 gang members.

In the decade after,

they swelled to 15,000
between the US and El Salvador.

-So the gang is
growing in size

and in the number of cliques,

and their criminal activities
are increasing,

and the amount of violence
is increasing,

partly because they're competing
with other gangs.

-As MS-13 grows,

women started to look
to the gang for protection.

-Fleeing that violent
home situation into the streets,

the gang, for them,
was a sense of protection.

Also, the sense
of solidarity and socialization

is extremely important
for these young women.

-In the context
of Central America

and the fact
that Honduras is

one of the most hostile
countries in the world

for women.

The femicide rates are
through the roof,

which are hate-based murders
against women.

So when you grow up in
what is effectively a war zone

against your gender, you're
already primed to hit back.

And women who start
at the bottom of the gang,

I think, often have to prove
themselves, as do men,

that they're capable
of killing rival gang members,

threatening rival gang members,

and establishing dominance
through violence.

-Of the country's
300,000 refugees

who have remained
inside El Salvador's borders,

at least half are estimated
to have fled their villages

in the face of killings
by death squads.

-As the gang recruits
more refugees from El Salvador,

they start
to storm neighborhoods in LA

with fists and knives.

[ Police radio chatter ]

-Rough estimates
of the US census in 1980

was approximately
80,000 Salvadorans

in Southern California,

either legal residents or
who had been naturalized.

By 1985, that number
had mushroomed to about 350,000,

the vast majority of whom
were undocumented,

who had come to Los Angeles

to try to flee the violence
in their home country.

And the impact that that
had on the gang was

the youth
who felt disenfranchised

and picked on by others
in their community,

they're wanting to join the gang

that represented their
nationality, their culture.

-Today, MS-13 and 18th
Street are in an all-out war,

but it wasn't always that way.

-In the 1980s, MS
and 18th Street got along fine.

They would party together.

They could hang out together.

There was not any major rivalry
or beef between the gangs.

-Some say
a member of 18th Street

and an MS-13 member known
as Scrappy

got into an argument
over a girl.

-A fight broke out at a party
over a young woman.

Scrappy was
an MS-13 gang member,

and he was hitting on
the girlfriend

of an 18th Street gang member,
and words were exchanged.

A fight broke out.
-18th Street is out for blood.

In one account, they returned
to the party with an Uzi

and gunned down Scrappy
near the intersection

of Normandie Avenue,
and MLK Jr. Boulevard.

-There has to be
some kind of payment in return.

-In the days after
Scrappy's murder,

MS-13 goes on
an 18th Street killing spree,

taking out
at least four members.

As the years go on,

the list of casualties
between the two gangs

gets to the point that
no one remembers the body count.

By the 1990s,

the Mara Salvatrucha
develops the motto...

- Mata, viola, controla --

kill, rape, control.

-One of the most notable
leaders among MS-13 cliques

was Ernesto Deras.

In 1990, he came to LA

as a member of the US trained
Salvadorean special forces

receiving political asylum as
a former combatant in the war.

He's hailed as Satan himself.

-In the early days of MS,
they would practice

these rituals
to give offerings to the devil.

Examples of that
would be burning a Bible

or capturing a black cat
and killing it, cutting it open.

The blood sacrifice
was considered

to be a great offering
for the Devil.

-Our next step
in the fight against crime

is to take on gangs
the way we once took on the mob.

-Deras first takes MS-13
from defense to offense.

-MS-13 is like an army.

Like, you have ranks.

In order to go up in that rank,
you need to do violent things.

You need to kill people.
You need to rape women.

You need to do actions to prove

that you belong firmly
to that gang.

-Gang initiators call it
a jump-in.

They call it La Gloria Brincada,

or the glorious
or holy jump-in.

"Brinca" in Spanish
means "to jump. "

If you were knocked down,

there's an expectation that
you would get back up and fight.

-For women, there is an option
of being sexed into the gang,

where prospecting females
have sex with one

or multiple male gang members
to gain membership.

-From over 40 homegirls
that I interviewed,

all of them told me that they
had been jumped into the gang,

and I asked them,
why didn't you get sexed in?

And they said,

because you're going to
be considered

to be a hood rat, a sexual toy,

and you're not going to have
any status whatsoever.

You're not going to have
any respect within the gang.

-As the bottom rung
of the chain,

women were typically used
as lookouts for gang activity.

Though because of this,

they ended up being trusted
with high-level information.

-Within the gang,

the expectation is
that the females will play

more the role of the caretakers,

the messengers, carrying
drugs or guns or messages

from prison or jails
to the streets.

-As the violence skyrockets,

mass deportations
of gang members cause MS-13

to explode in Latin America
and boomerang back to the US.

-This gang was spread
by a US policy

of deporting what
they called "criminal aliens."

These were MS-13 gang members

who were convicted
of crimes in California.

And once they did their time
in California State prisons,

they were deported in waves
in the 1990s,

back to El Salvador,
Guatemala, other places,

and it just spread the gang,

and the gang ultimately
boomeranged back

to the East Coast.

-After almost seven years
of bloodshed,

Deras has an epiphany and
leaves the gang for the Lord.

Though Deras'
leadership was short-lived,

his militant creed lives on

a MS-13 becomes one
of the most dangerous gangs

in the United States.

-They dropped the "stoner."

Part of that was to indicate

that they were more cholo style,
traditional street gang.

It also indicated a change
in their MO

and their criminal activities
and the amount of violence.

-With military practices
in place, MS-13 intensifies.

Toward the end of the '90s
and into the 2000s,

the first MS-13
gang members started popping up

on the East Coast.

-Spread like wildfire.

The gang was able to
start new cells.

Some of these gang members
moved to the East Coast,

places such as Maryland,
Long Island, North Carolina.

-The gang that authorities say
has infiltrated 33 states,

with hardcore members

organizing drug trafficking,
gun running, robberies,

and assassinations.

-The bigger they get,
the more attention they draw,

and some women of MS-13
go from lookout to informant.

-Some of these women
have turned against the gang

or tried to turn
against the gang,

and it's ended up
with really tragic consequences.

-One of those informants
is Brenda "Smiley" Paz,

a 17-year-old member of MS-13.

-Brenda Paz migrated from
Honduras to the United States

in search of the American dream,

and then got caught up
in gang life

when she was
in the United States.

-She was about 13.

She joined the Normandie clique
of MS in Los Angeles.

She had somewhat
of a reputation within the gang,

but it was more
her affiliation with

some of the heavy hitters
within the gang.

-This is, like, the normal one
that's M, and that's the S,

13, 13.

-Paz moves around,
from Los Angeles to Texas,

and then finally up
to Arlington, Virginia,

hanging out with heavy hitters
from MS-13.

While in Virginia, she hooks up
with another gang leader.

-She and her boyfriend
got arrested.

I believe it was for
stealing a car.

To avoid jail time,

she decided to become
an informant,

and she became an informant
for the FBI.

-Being an informant
with US law enforcement

is a very unforgivable sin.

If you've found out, then
the consequences are deadly.

-So what do I say?
-Tell them what gang you.

-MS-13.
-What clique?

-Normandie Locos
Savatrucha,

the first clique in MS.

-Brenda Paz,
an active member of MS-13,

dated hardcore members of MS

and knew a lot about
their criminal activities.

She and her boyfriend
got arrested,

and in order to avoid jail time,

Brenda decided to become
an informant for the FBI,

the Federal Bureau
of Investigation.

-Being a snitch

and working with American law
enforcement against the gang,

it's a very risky pastime.

-For attackings, I guess,
officers and other gang members,

it's very significant.

They take the shirt off,

they always go like that,
signifying

that they're going to get into
battle, taking your shirts off.

-She became a powerful source
of information for the FBI.

As a result of that, she
was put in witness protection.

-Paz was a very young
immigrant woman.

She felt very isolated
and lonely in witness protection

and separated from her "family,"
which had always been the gang.

And I think eventually,

that loneliness
got the better of her,

that eventually
led to her demise.

-She decided to call up
her former gang members,

and she invited them
to her place.

When these gang members arrived,

one of the first questions
they asked Brenda was,

"Where have you been?

What have you been doing?"

No matter what story
you give them,

if somebody has been
gone for a while,

they want to corroborate
whatever story

they're being told.

-Sooner or later,

everything always gets handled,
that's our motto.

-In their investigation,
they found her diary.

And in the diary,

there was a business card
from an FBI special agent.

And this was the smoking gun
for the MS gang members.

They decided
that something had to be done.

-If it takes you 20 years,
I'll take you 20 years,

but in that 20 years,
hell's gonna break loose.

-She was a teenager,

and she was actually pregnant
at the time, and they found out.

They took her to an isolated
valley in Northern Virginia,

and she was stabbed repeatedly.

-They stabbed her
approximately 13 times.

The brutal murder
of a pregnant teenager

thrust the gang
into the national spotlight.

-The three dots are
"my crazy life."

- La vida loca , as it's known,

"the crazy life,"

is gang members rarely
age past the age of 30.

It's a fast and hard life that
will end violently or in prison.

-The few places
MS will lead you,

jail, the hospital,
or a cemetery.

-After the brutal killing,
the FBI puts together

the MS-13 National
Gang Task Force in 2004.

-I think the Brenda Paz
story is important symbolically

because she was a rare example

of high-ranking
female leadership in the gang.

-A female who wants to have
the status and reputation

of a hard core gang member

not only has to do
the same as the guys,

to get the same amount
of respect,

a woman needs to do more.

-This is a build out

of a transnational
criminal organization.

We should take it seriously,

because these women
can be just as vicious,

if not more so, than the men.

-MS-13 put on the women
in a mark of destruction.

-In some MS-13 cliques,

women make up almost a third
of the members,

much higher than the average
number of women in other gangs.

The women of MS-13
have a military mentality,

with no remorse
for brutal killing.

-MS-13 has women
who are part of the gang,

and they take part in some
of the criminal activities

that, you know,
the men in the gang

take part in,
violent crimes, even.

-The gangs want power.

They won sex,
and they won money.

They use the women as honey
traps to gain those things.

Christian Villagran Morales
was 18 years old.

-Vanessa Alvarado lured him
into Malcolm King Park,

promising sex.

-Not far from where
Brenda was killed in Virginia,

a female MS-13 associate
will carry out violent orders.

Labeled as the MS-13 Vixen,

19-year-old Vanessa Alvarado,
isn't a typical honey pot.

-Vanessa Alvarado
lured Christian

with the promise of sex.

-Christian Villagran Morales,

a landscaper
in the Maryland area,

had thrown up 18th Street gang
signs in front of MS-13 members.

-His murder was ordered

because he flashed
a rival gang's sign,

bottom line.

Mr. Morales,
who was not a gang member.

-Oh, yeah.

Well, I'm not going to use
the hand signs, because...

-Due to their
army-like mentality,

disrespecting the gang
is the number one offense.

MS-13 members bring Alvarado
in on the plan to kill Morales.

Not only is she luring him
into the woods,

she'll be there
for the brutal killing.

Alvarado starts messaging
with Morales,

and tells him to meet her
at the end of Malcolm King Park

with the promise of sex.

As Alvarado walks deeper
into the woods with Morales,

three members of MS-13
are waiting to pounce.

-Mr. Morales knew
almost immediately

that his life was going to
be taken, and he tried to flee.

-Once in the woods,

the MS-13 gang members
brutally stabbed Mars 153 times

as Alvarado cheered them on.

-A judge sentenced
a woman to 40 years in prison

for luring a man to his death.

-The victim had
stab wounds all over his body,

the worst of them to
the back of his head and neck.

-This idea that women
don't know how to use violence

or shy away from it is nonsense.

I mean, we've seen women
in high-ranking positions

in organized crime
across Latin America,

and the gangs are no exception
to their ability to adopt

and embrace violence
to further their interests.

-The women in MS-13,
just get used to violence

because that's
how they handle issues.

They said, this is the way it's
going to be, and they go to war.

And if somebody is
opposing them,

they go after them full force.

-The murder was captured
on camera.

-In another territory
of MS-13,

a brutal murder is
about to go down.

This time,
the killer is a woman.

Over the course
of the next two months,

the paths of two MS-13
associates

will meet with a bloody end.

15-year-old Damaris Reyes Rivas

and 17-year-old
Venus Romero Irheta

Born in El Salvador,
they lead parallel lives.

Having been brutalized
by gang violence,

they both make
the perilous journey in 2014

to reunite with their mothers
in the United States.

Little do they know
the violence of MS-13

does not stop at the border.

And in America, women
are allowed to join the gang.

-For Damaris,

it was a difficult transition,
having to go to school

in a new country,
in a whole new language,

and her mom was hard-working,
trying to provide

not just for her, but for her
extended family as well.

-Venus had a
very complicated life.

She was raped, abused,
and beat in El Salvador.

-El Salvador had
a homicide rate

of over 100 per 100,000
individuals,

making it the most violent
country in the world.

-Many people leave
because of violence.

Once in Maryland,

both Venus and Damaris
become associates of MS-13,

Venus through a 21 yea--old
rapper named Christian Rivas.

He's also a rising star
in MS-13's territory

in the DMV area,
slang for the area

where DC, Maryland,
and Virginia meet.

Christian goes by the street
name "Sombra" or "shadow"

and post his raps
on social media and YouTube.

[ Rapping in Spanish ]

-Liking or dating somebody
who is a gang member,

you're going to
get indoctrinated,

and you're going to wind up
in the gang.

That's probably the number one
pathway for a female.

-Instead of being a gang victim,

Venus expands her influence
in MS-13.

However, Damaris' involvement
with the gang

is about to take
a turn for the worse.

It's Venus's birthday,
and Christian doesn't show up.

-10 days later, on January 12,

police discover a dead body on
the banks of the Potomac River.

It's Christian.

Police learned
that Christian was attacked

with machetes and killed.

-He had multiple stab wounds
to his body,

and he had been in the water
for some period of time.

-Venus suspects Damaris.

Loyalty is everything in MS-13.

Without it, there's no control.

-Being the woman
of a powerful gang member

makes you powerful
by association,

but the life of a gang member
is usually hard and fast,

and once your
gang member boyfriend is dead,

then your power comes to an end,

and you're also vulnerable
from his rivals

and people aspiring
to take his place.

-Then, Venus and Damaris
are both reported missing.

-We implore the public,
please help us find Venus.

And if Venus is listening,
please come home.

We're all concerned
for your safety.

-A video on Venus's phone

leads police
to a grim discovery.

-What was on that phone
and on that iCloud

was what broke the case open.

-Even police
wouldn't describe what happened.

It was horrific.

-In the DC area,

police are still looking for
the killers of Christian Rivas,

and now, looking for
his missing girlfriend Venus.

-As of this morning,

she has been upgraded as
an endangered missing juvenile.

-Damaris goes missing
in December 10, 2016.

The intel suggested
through phone information,

her phone went dead and stopped
having activity by January 8.

And that's when it was clear

that this was turning from a
missing juvenile to a homicide.

-Despite being
Venus's boyfriend,

Christian's been cheating on her
with Damaris.

-I do believe that Venus found
value in the protection

that came with being
Christian's girlfriend.

And part of the fear
of Christian ever leaving her,

whether it was for Damaris
or anyone else was

that she would lose that status.

-The body of Christian Rivas

was found along the Potomac
River in Dumfries last month.

Now, six people are in custody,
four of them seen here.

In looking for his killers,

detectives discovered a second
murder involving a teenage girl.

-There was a search warrant
conducted on Venus

on her Apple iCloud account,
and what was on that phone

and on that iCloud was
what broke the case open.

-On the iCloud,

they find a video of a girl
as she's being brutally killed.

It's Damaris.

-Police found
her body dumped in the woods.

Her murder was caught on camera
and was so vicious,

even police wouldn't
describe what happened.

-Brutal killing.
It was horrific.

-Investigators believe
Reyes went missing in December,

being held against her will,

assaulted, and murdered
in early January.

-On February 15,

just three days after Damaris'
body is found,

Venus surfaces, not knowing
the cops have the tape.

-This exclusive video
tonight of a tearful reunion,

a missing 17-year-old girl from
Fairfax County is now home safe.

-While her family welcomes
her home,

the police are about to arrest
her on suspicion for murder.

-She was arrested as soon
as news crew left

and taken into custody
by police.

-The only thing that I have
is what's on that video,

and I know that you know
what's on the video.

-"I wanted to know
where Christian was."

-Under interrogation,
Venus admits

she caught
Christian and Damaris together

in the weeks
leading up to her murder.

-The next day,
Venus gets a call from a friend

of the MS-13 clique.

They know Christian
has been killed

before the police
even think he's missing.

Venus lost her protection
and boyfriend, all in one.

-Venus was part
of creating this narrative

that Damaris was involved
in Christian's murder,

so that she could get
the backing of the gang

and the power of the gang
to kill her.

-I don't know
that I've ever seen

a more callous description

of someone describing
what they did in a murder.

--The video shows
15-year-old Damaris

being led to the woods
by other MS-13 members.

-Part of Venus' motivation
was this love triangle,

in addition
to the gang retribution.

-In the video,

Damaris is brutally beaten
within an inch of her life

for her alleged involvement
in Christian's death.

-The videos they recorded
with the cell phones,

the intention was to show to
another high members of the team

how valuable they are.

It's like a medal, right?
"Look what I did."

-In Damaris final minutes,

Venus gets her to admit
to sleeping with Christian,

and inflicts her final act
of revenge.

-This is about if somebody
is messing with your boyfriend,

for example,

if somebody is luring
your boyfriend to get killed

by other gang members,
it is very personal,

and to show
other members of my group

that, I deserve respect.

I need to kill
this other person.

-Damaris had a tattoo,
I believe,

of a $1 sign on her hand,

that Christian had
actually tattooed on her,

and Venus skinned it
off her hand

while she lay there dying
from the stab wounds.

-Was it a lot?

-Venus killed Damaris,
stabbing her 13 times,

which is the name of the gang,
MS-13.

-And then what did you do?

-I killed her.

-Venus might have done it
for love,

but more likely, she
did it for power.

Venus was a paro,
and as an associate of the gang,

wanting to curry favor
with the gang,

carrying out this assassination
would give her status,

would be putting in work
for the gang,

and she would be considered
much more likely

to be a candidate for becoming
an actual member of the gang,

as opposed to being
just a paro or associate.

-Venus wanted the same thing
the men of MS-13 wanted --

power, and she would do
whatever it took to keep it.

That meant ending Damaris.

-In the first public case,

a woman in MS-13
had gotten the green light

from higher-ups to kill.

-It is relatively rare
for a young woman within MS-13

to carry out a green light
or assassination

on a fellow gang member.

-One of the things
that astonishes me

and really saddens me
and scares me is

to see this almost lack
of appreciation for life.

Violence is kind of seen
as a normal thing.

-MS-13 is able to
still grow due to their ability

to keep people in check.

-The gang was expanding.

The gang started getting more
into entrepreneurial activities,

taxing a neighborhood,

business extortion, robbery,
petty theft.

-Between 2012-2017
one study found that MS-13

was suspected of
carrying out over 200 murders

in the United States alone.

-MS-13,

their numbers are
increasing in our area,

and so is the violence.

-MS-13, they're the boogeyman
of immigration and gangs.

They are involved
in a lot of violence,

sometimes heinous.

-A gruesome slaying
of four boys in Long Island

Is about to put a woman by
the name of Diablita on the map.

-The body was just
a bunch of flesh and bones.

-On social media,
she went by the name "Diablita,"

Spanish for "little devil,

and that's how prosecutors
allege Leniz Escobar acted.

-Women of MS-13 are moving up
the ranks from bait to killers.

-She's called "la diablita,"
"the little devil,"

and she's on trial in
Suffolk County

for leading these young men
to their brutal deaths.

-Four months
after Christian's murder,

a female member of MS-13
is about to shed blood

in a New York City suburb.

18-year-old Jorge Tigre,
who also goes by George,

is missing,
and so are four other boys.

MS-13 targets Jorge Tigre

after he's caught
throwing up gang signs.

The bodies of the missing boys,
Jorge Tigre,

Michael Lopez Banegas,
Jefferson Villalobos,

and Justin Llivicura

are found in the woods
of a Long Island Park.

However, one still remains
unaccounted for.

-One of the things that
we use to help combat crimes

that are in our community

is monitoring
phone calls in our jails.

Any time there is a crime
in our community,

someone in our jail
is talking about it.

-Listening to jailhouse calls

leads police to their
prime suspect, Leniz Escobar,

who calls her incarcerated
boyfriend after the murders.

-When she describes
taking the train,

that is coded language
for, they were murdered,

but that one got away,

and she is concerned
about the one that got away.

Leniz Escobar lured the
four victims back to this area

on the ruse that they
were going to hang out,

maybe smoke marijuana together.

The members of MS-13
then started to

viciously hack
the four victims up.

-One managed to escape,

and became the government's
star witness.

-Guilty verdict on all counts.

That's what a jury
returned today.

-Prosecutors told press
after the trial

that Long Island's little
devil even licked the blood

off her lips after one of
the victims had reached for her

and gotten his blood
on her shirt and face.

The massacre in the woods
is so horrific,

it grabs national headlines.

-Vicious killing
of four young men

in the Central Islip Park
in April.

-And three months later,

President Trump seizes on
an opportunity to condemn MS-13

during a fiery speech
he gives on Long Island.

-Few communities
has suffered worse at the hands

of these MS-13 thugs
than the people of Long Island.

It is the policy
of this administration

to dismantle,
decimate and eradicate MS-13.

-Crackdown against
a butcher's gang known

as MS-13 on Long Island.

-A lot of judges look at
the person in front of them

and they see a young female
and they think,

"Oh, she's harmless,"
which is a little questionable.

-Women in MS-13
have increasingly shown

how ruthless they can be.

No remorse, just business.

-Esmeralda Flores Acosta was
a single, divorced mom

of two children who used to
work as a hairdresser,

and then created one
of the most elaborate

human trafficking schemes,

allied with
MS-13 in El Salvador.

-By working
with a dangerous MS-13 leader,

Flores Acosta was
able to conduct

one of the first human
trafficking cases of its kind.

Flores Acosta took victims
into her web

and had them marry men
for their life insurance,

emblazoning them
as black widows.

-Esmeralda Flores Acosta
was called the Black Widow

by the press because
of creating arranged marriages

and then having the husbands
murdered by the MS-13,

and then claim their
life insurance payments.

She operated for a few years.
She had three victims,

one of which stood out,
which was a woman called Monica.

Monica was offered work
by Esmeralda

as a domestic nanny and cleaner.

-One day,
when Monica was working,

she had seen another woman
in the house

that had bruises down her back
seemingly from Flores Acosta.

-I've seen women
who are running crews,

who are financial leaders

in the drug or the
human trafficking business.

And that's another
hard to believe thing.

How could women be involved

in human trafficking
of other women?

But they are.

-When Monica got scared
and tried to leave,

Esmeralda lured her
into a meeting

with her MS-13 boyfriend,
Wilbur.

Monica recounts that event
in quite a lot of detail

in the court documents.

Esmeralda took her to a house,

and as she walked
past the window to the house,

she looked inside, and she could
see this guy inside

who was tall and muscular,

and his entire body
was covered with tattoos.

And the only part of his body

that doesn't have any tattoos
on it are his hands.

So, when Esmeralda took her
into that house,

Wilber put a gun
to Monica's head

and told her that she
would do exactly as she was told

and that she wasn't going home.

-According to court documents
from Monica's marriage,

Flores Acosta made
more than $60,000

after claiming
the life insurance from the man

Monica was forced to marry.

-The scheme that she created
was considered by the state

a form of human trafficking,

the first of its kind
ever seen in El Salvador.

It was a really elaborate scheme
run by a woman

who sort of created this

criminal matriarchy
around herself.

It was much more sophisticated
than the kind of things

we often see
carried out by the gangs.

It was very entrepreneurial.

She was outsourcing
the sort of

most brutal part
of the scheme to the MS-13.

-Monica was able to flee
to the police station

and report the trafficking ring
the Black Widow was leading.

Flores Acosta was
arrested in 2017,

and then sentenced to
up to 30 years in prison.

The Black Widow is
just the tip of the iceberg

of what women in MS-13
are capable of.

-She also admitted to setting
up two different murders.

-Wanted murder suspect.

-She was allegedly in the midst
of plotting a third murder.

-I think they're getting more
and more organized

as we speak
and closing in the ranks.

-All of those crimes
in hopes of advancing her career

in the brutal MS-13 gang.

-MS-13
is the first street gang

to be designated

as a transnational criminal
organization by the US Treasury.

Their numbers only
continue to grow,

along with
the number of women

that are joining the gang,

carrying out MS-13's
bloody legacy.

-Women are underestimated
within MS-13,

but not for the reasons
that most people would think.

They're underestimated
because they play a central

and important role
within the gang

that enable the gang to function
and to operate and survive.