19 Suspected Members of MS-13 Gang Are Indicted

Immigration officials will be notified of any defendants who are suspected of being in the country illegally, he said.

Relatives of most of the defendants could not be reached yesterday. But the father of one said that his son is a construction worker and is not in a gang.

Franklin Mejia Molina, also believed to be known as "Dragon," has worked at a construction site at Dulles International Airport for the past two weeks, said his father, who spoke on the condition that his name not be published.

"Maybe he has friends in a gang. There is a lot of confusion now," the father said.

The father said law enforcement agents stormed into his Silver Spring home during the early morning hours yesterday to arrest his son.

"I want to know what my rights are," he said. "They broke down the front door and put guns to the heads of my children, who are 8 years old and 7 years old." He said he brought his family to the United States from El Salvador in 2001.

Made up primarily of Salvadoran immigrants and other Central Americans and some Mexicans, Mara Salvatrucha was formed in the 1980s in Los Angeles, officials have said. Central American immigrants initially formed the group to protect themselves against older, well-established Mexican gangs.

Mara Salvatrucha began showing up in the D.C. area in the late 1980s.

In recent months, MS-13 has been accused of a series of high-profile attacks in Prince George's and Montgomery and in Northern Virginia. The gang is responsible for more than 20 homicides and dozens of attacks in the Washington area, authorities said. Virtually all the victims have been Latinos.

In Montgomery, two knife attacks in Colesville and Wheaton on Aug. 5 left six teenagers wounded; officials said the attacks were a two-pronged assault by MS-13 on a rival group. A dozen young men and teenagers are charged in those attacks, officials said. Two of the 19 defendants named in the racketeering indictment, Nelson Bernal, 24, of Hyattsville and Santos Maximos Garcia, 28, of Silver Spring, are each charged in one of the Montgomery knife attacks.

In Northern Virginia, where MS-13 emerged in the early 1990s, officials have increasingly turned to federal prosecutions to try to stymie the gang. In December, a federal grand jury in Alexandria indicted two alleged MS-13 members on racketeering charges. The case has not gone to trial yet.

In May, a federal jury in Alexandria convicted two MS-13 members in the murder of a teenager who became a witness against the gang.