Welcome to the week three discussion post.  Last week we went through time frames for different organizations.  It shows that there have been changes with the law, but not necessarily with the crimes.  Of course with time changes there are new types of crimes that are always evolving.  

This week we are focused on organizations that are motivated by their ethnic background.  There are so many organizations that are so biased they will not allow people of other ethnicities in their inner circle.  Find these organizations near you and enjoy the hunt for the ethnically biased organizations.  Please let us know if they even allow others to show up and try to join.  Below is the assignment. 

Reading your books you will see there are so many countries 
that have made the United States their home and have found each other 
and have either become self perpetuating criminal organizations or have 
joined forces and expanded criminal organizations. This week you will 
need to find two of these organizations in your area that are driven by 
their ethnic background.  This does not have to be in your neighborhood 
or your city, but in your region.  Link us to the articles (not the 
paper, but the specific article) and tell us their story IN YOUR WORDS, not in someone else’s words. Tell us their main activities. Tell us what crimes they have been linked to and why? Have high members been arrested? Think of anything that they have done or any way that they might work differently from other criminal organizations you have read about in your book. Tell us what you think in terms of who or what gang, criminal or criminal organization that they may be compared to being alike. No less than 300 words in your initial post. You must 
also respond to two fellow students.

Remember, 
YOUR OWN WORDS.

Remember,
LINK US TO YOUR ARTICLES.  

Please answer this in discussion form, not question/answer form.

If you have been in this class 
before, you must use different organizations than what you used in this 
class previously.  

Deadline is Sunday of this week, at midnight.

Call me anytime if you have any questions.

Julia Keefe

This week I found a great website that provides information about gangs in Virginia. Virginia Gang Investigators Association (vgia.org) lists over 170 articles about different cases involving gangs that are either ongoing or were recently prosecuted.

I read about a Bedford County case where a MS-13 gang member was charged with brutally murdering a Lynchburg teenager. He was found guilty of capital murder. Kevin Soto-Bonilla (offender) was also charged with participation in a criminal act in association with a criminal street gang (VGIA). The article stated Soto-Bonilla helped cut the victims hand off and also helped abduct the victim from his home. The article doesn’t go into much detail about why this was done, other than just saying it was gang activity.

MS-13 is short for Mara Salvatrucha, but the criminal organization is better known by its abbreviation. Most members are from El Salvador or are first generation Salvadoran-Americans (VGIA). MS-13 started in Los Angeles in the late 1980s, but the group has spread toward the East Coast since then (VGIA).

The MS-13 motto is to “kill, rape and control”, according to the article. This is different than Mafia groups out of New York City. Mafia groups seem to be more profit-driven and the family relations is a big characteristic in the group. MS-13 seem to have more random violent acts, which aren’t linked to a crime being committed for money.

I also read an article about Shannon Sanchez, who had gotten away from the MS-13 gang. After hanging around with the gang in high school, she married and had several children. But as an adult, she became involved again with MS-13 and helped cover up a brutal gang murder (VGIA). Sanchez was sentenced in federal court in Alexandria to 70 months in prison. Sanchez burned the other offender’s clothes and gave the gang bleach to clean the murder weapon (VGIA).

Heather Payton

The Triads are an Transnational Organized Crime Group based out of Asia.  Hong Kong is their home base but have several small bases throughout the world, including America, Spain and Taiwan.  The Triads have been a developed organized crime group for over one hundred years.  I have not read anything that a member of the Triads must be Chinese, but, from what I read, they get members from Hong-Kong.  Those who are young and impressionable who have dropped out of school or seeking asylum.  They are known for human trafficking in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.  I have not read anything about high members being arrested but the younger receipts usually are.  The Triads put the younger ones in danger because if they get caught the will have a lesser sentence and are more disposable than that of leaders.  Not only is human trafficking a profit for them but more recently they are in the business of black market of smuggling endangered fish and high end seafood.  I would say they are like the Mafia with a hierarchal rank  structure, but more like gangs in how they recruit their members.

Another Transnational crime group is the Russian Mafia.  They are of soviet ethnic decent and much the like the US Mafia but less structured.  They follow their own laws that can be read in the link provided below. In the U.S, a high ranking leader,  Ivanov, was arrested in Brooklyn, New York, on June 8, 1995, for trying to extort $3.5 million from a Wall Street investment firm.  Not many high leaders ever get arreste and charged.  They are linked to human trafficking, using Ukrainian and Romanian girls.  They are promised more money, education and employment in the U.S. and then kidnapp and force methaphetamines and heroin into their systems to make them obey their laws.