"I wonder if that shift has anything to do with, as you say, the influence of the 'fast growing' Mexican based MS13 drug trade?"
MS-13 are El Savadorian gangs that do have some Mexican members and to believe it or not, there are some Black members in the gang too.
To answer your question, It's part of the equation. The Mexican direct connection has been a nightmare down in Mexico and near the borders in the past few months. The Ms-13 are pretty much doing their own thing with and without the Mexican drug traffic. What is known is that Le Eme aka Mexican Mob protects them when they enter the prisons over here, and I think that they do help supply and support Le Eme on the drug market. How much, that I don't know. Most of the Latin gangs in L.A. and the surrounding areas work for Le Eme. One way to tell is, if the gang has a 13 tagged at the end of their gang name, they're Le Eme branded. Eme is the 13th letter in the alphabet aka the letter 'M' in english. L Eme aka Black Hand. This is playing a major role in the racial war between Blacks and Mexicans [[Well that's what they call it, Mexican isn't a race. Just trying to add a little p.c. in this).
Behind the racial war is a gang war that is started by the Le Eme to knock out Bloods, Crip and other Black gangs off of their turf in Compton, Highland Park Ca. etc so that they can run the area. Sadly, both innocent Blacks and Mexicans are suffering this and that's where most of the demise toll is at. If they prevail the Asian gangs are next.
Anyways, the fast spread of Mara 13 aka Mara Salvatrucha is primarily doing their own thing and came together with other El Salvadorain gangs to make a nationwide network. But they're harder to catch; unlike your typical gang or mob, they don't have a head leader. This is similar to how Le Eme works and makes them hard to break down. Ms-13 has been in Michigan for sometime now, but most MS-13 members hit up the smaller towns and recently started hitting up major cities, forcing out exisiting gangs with threats first and death next if there is any resistance.
The first time that I heard of the gang was back during 2000/2001 when I resided in Michigan.
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