WASHINGTON — Federal officials arrested more than 300 members of a previously lesser known criminal gang during a summer crackdown, twice as many as last year, and arrested nearly 1,400 gang members nationwide, immigration authorities said Wednesday.
The increase in arrests of alleged members of the gang Surenos 13 may represent the gang’s increasing reach, or it may result from better classification of those arrested, authorities and academics said. The gang is distinct from the larger MS-13, but police or federal agents may have lumped them together during previous roundups.
Over the course of a four-month effort that ended Tuesday, officials arrested 1,759 people in 28 states, 33 percent more than they arrested during a similar campaign last year. Of those, 1,315 were gang members and gang associates, and 338 belonged to Surenos 13, according to figures released Wednesday by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
None of the arrests were in Colorado.
The Surenos 13 members were far-flung, ranging into what might seem like unlikely places such as Provo, Utah. Seven people identified as Surenos 13 members were arrested there in June.
A relatively small number of those picked up this summer, 86, were identified as members of MS-13. Federal authorities have said MS-13 is one of the nation’s largest gangs, with 10,000 members in the U.S., Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. During a similar crackdown last year, officials arrested 273 people identified as MS-13 members.
Officials arrested more members of smaller gangs than they had in previous years, and U.S. citizens accounted for the second-highest nationality of those arrested, with Mexicans being the most, ICE assistant secretary Julie Myers said.
