In 2011, the FBI released the results of their second in-depth National Gang Threat Assessment,
which showed that gang-related activities were on the rise, and gang membership was
at an all-time high.
Gang activity is changing, too.
Criminal organizations are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and beginning to pivot away
from high-risk activities like drug trafficking and weapons smuggling, and turning towards
activities with lower visibility and detection rates, like human trafficking and white collar
crime, making it harder than ever to prosecute gang crimes.
Gangs are also increasingly infiltrating law enforcement and military organizations in
an effort to gain intel on rival gangs and anti-crime operations.
Even more terrifying, more and more gangs are gaining access to high-powered military-grade
weapons and equipment to use in their nefarious activities.
With millions of members and tens of thousands of organizations to monitor, which gangs are
the ones keeping the FBI up at night?
Let’s find out by taking a look at the 10 of the Deadliest Gangs in the USA.
Number 10: California’s 18th Street Gang.
With 15,000 members and counting, the 18th Street Gang is the largest street gang in
California.
The gang has expanded rapidly in recent years, and now has a presence in 32 states, strong
ties to the Mexican Mafia, and has even infiltrated the military.
The 18th Street Gang is responsible for at least one robbery or assault per day in LA
County, but they’ve also been known to be involved in murder, extortion, auto theft,
drug smuggling and human trafficking.
Number 9: The Florencia 13.
The Florencia 13 are another south L.A. Sureño gang with ties to the Mexican Mafia, and they
are the bitter rivals of the 18th Street Gang.
The Florencia 13 are notorious drug smugglers known to commit murder and other violent crimes,
and also have ties to the U.S. military.
In 2010 alone, of the 94 Florencia 13 gang members who pled guilty to their charges that
year, 6 members were sentenced to life in prison for their violent crimes.
Number 8: The Los Aztecas.
The Los Aztecas started in El Paso Texas, and many of its members are recruited from
within the notorious Texas prison system.
Some of the gang’s activities actually occur inside Texas prisons, including the production
of heroin.
The Los Aztecas’ strict military structure and ties to Mexican cartels helps to maintain
order, and members are known to participate in drug running, illegal alien smuggling,
and murder, including the brutal 2011 murder of a US consulate official and their family.
In total Los Aztecas killed three American consulate officials including the pregnant
wife of one of the workers.
Number 7: The Latin Kings.
The Latin Kings originated in Chicago in the 1940s, and is now the biggest Hispanic gang
in the U.S. Solid numbers are hard to come by, but there are estimated to be anywhere
from 18,000 up to 35,000 Latin Kings members in Chicago alone, and the group has spread
to 34 states.
The strict organizational structure and strong religious aesthetic promotes loyalty, something
that the Kings take very seriously.
A member suspected of violating the gang’s strict rules may be subject to brutal punishments,
like a Five Minute Physical - a five-minute beating of the offender by 5 other members
- or a Terminate on Sight order, which encourages other members to kill the offender on sight.
Number 6: The Crips and The Bloods.
Okay, so this is technically 2 gangs, but you can’t talk about one without mentioning
the other.
These two rival gangs are perhaps the best-known in the country.
The Bloods are an L.A. street gang that was formed in the 1970s and quickly spread across
the country.
There are an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 active Bloods members today, quickly recognizable
by their unusual hand signals and red attire.
The Crips were also founded in California in the 1960s before spreading throughout the
US, and they now have a strong presence in New York City.
There are up to 50,000 active members of the Crips in the U.S.
Both the Bloods and the Crips have been involved in murder, racketeering and drug trafficking,
and the bitter rivalry between the two gangs leads to frequent conflict and violent retaliation.
Number 5: Somali Gangs.
Many gang members who are recruited from the Somali immigrant community adopt Crip or Blood
membership upon arrival in the U.S., but recent years have seen a rise in independent Somali
gangs, leading to tension with other more established gangs.
These smaller outfits are able to commit major crimes, including alien smuggling and human
trafficking, prostitution and credit card fraud.
You might be surprised to learn that the biggest pockets of these Somali gangs can be found
in Minnesota, Washington state and Missouri, proving that gang violence is not just a big-city
problem.
Number 4: The Simon City Royals.
The Royals were formed in Chicago in the 1950s, and are the oldest and largest white gang
in the U.S.
The stereotype that gang members are predominantly people of colour is wildly inaccurate - in
reality, up to 40% of gang members in the U.S. are white.
Up to 53% of gang members in Mississippi are white, even though all 97 people prosecuted
for gang crimes in Mississippi between 2010 and 2017 were African American.
According to Babe Howell, a criminal law professor at City University of New York who focuses
on crime and race, police tend to underestimate the percentage of white gang members, and
overestimate the number of black and hispanic members.
“Police see groups of young white people as individuals, each responsible for his or
her own conduct, and hold young people of color in street as gangs criminally liable
for the conduct of their peers,” she says.
Number 3: The Aryan Brotherhood.
Many of the predominately white gangs, like the Simon City Royals, were formed when white
people, after being denied membership in typically Hispanic or African American gangs, began
forming their own copycat gangs.
But that’s certainly not the case for all of them - some white gangs were founded on
extremely racist, white supremacist views, and the most notorious of these groups is
the Aryan Brotherhood.
The group, also known as The Brand, Alice Baker, AB or One-Two, was founded in California’s
San Quentin state prison more than 50 years ago by Irish bikers as a form of protection
for white inmates in newly desegregated prisons.
The group maintains a thriving prison network to this day - although Aryan Brotherhood members
make up just a small percentage of the country’s prison population, they are responsible for
up to 25% of all prison murders.
The Aryan Brotherhood dabbles in the typical gang activities, like drug smuggling and prostitution,
but their penchant for racially-motivated violent crime makes them one of the most dangerous
gangs in the U.S.
Number 2: The Outlaws.
The Outlaws are one of the most dangerous One-Percenter Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in the
country, second only to the notorious Hells Angels.
The Outlaws are the HA’s biggest, toughest rivals, and with more than 1,700 members and
hundreds of chapters, they are thought to be the biggest Outlaw Motorcycle Gang in the
world.
The Outlaws were formed in 1935 out of Matilda’s Bar on old Route 66 in a suburb of Chicago,
making them the oldest OMG in the world.
They are extremely active in the Great Lakes region and known to be heavily involved in
drug smuggling at the Canadian border.
Violent clashes with rival gangs are common, like the 2017 murder of of an Outlaw chapter
president by 69ers motorcycle gang members as his truck idled at a red light, and these
kinds of conflicts can often kickstart a cycle of brutally violent retaliation between gangs.
Number 1: The Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13.
Originally formed in Los Angeles, California in the 1970s to protect Salvadoran immigrants
from other LA gangs, MS-13 now has members in 42 U.S. states in addition to Mexico and
Guatemala.
The deportation of many members to El Salvador backfired on authorities, and led to the spread
of the organization throughout central America.
MS-13 has no official leadership structure, but their loose organization doesn’t stop
them from being one the the most dangerous gangs in the country.
With less than 10,000 members, MS-13 makes up less than 1% of all gang members in the
U.S., but they are so notoriously violent that the FBI has a separate special MS-13
Task Force to attempt combat the gang’s violence.
MS-13 members are known to be relentlessly cruel and merciless, as evidenced by a 2008
incident in which a 21 year old San Francisco MS-13 member brutally murdered an entire innocent
family for briefly blocking his car on a narrow street.
MS-13 was also behind a 2004 attack on a Honduran intercity bus - 6 gunmen opened fire on the
bus with automatic weapons, killing 28 and wounding 14 civilians, many of them women
and children.
Between these kinds of frequent high-profile violent crimes, and their involvement in horrific
illegal activities like child prostitution, MS-13 has more than earned its reputation
as the deadliest gang in the USA.
While most of the U.S.’s 30,000-plus gangs are small-time local outfits who dabble in
drugs and violence, a small but powerful number of these organizations are truly terrifying
to the law-abiding public.
Big-time gangs like The Outlaws, the 18th Street Gang, and MS-13 are expanding throughout
the U.S. and even internationally, gaining power and influence, and committing ever-more
horrific and brutal crimes against rival gangs and even innocent citizens.
Clearly, the problem of gang violence is not going away anytime soon - in fact, it’s
getting worse as gangs recruit new members, discover new illegal avenues for profit, and
ramp up the violence to protect their operations.
New strategies, like those aimed at deterring young people from joining gangs in the first
place, will be needed to slow the spread of gang violence across the U.S. and make the
streets - and even the prisons - safer for us all.
Now check out “What Makes Someone Join a Gang?”, or this video instead!