Showing results by author "Steven Dudley" in All Categories

Today, MS-13 is one of the most infamous street gangs on earth, with an estimated ten thousand members operating in dozens of states and linked to thousands of grisly murders each year in the US and abroad. But it is also misunderstood—less a drug cartel and more a hand-to-mouth organization whose criminal economy is based mostly on small-time extortion schemes and petty drug dealing. Steven Dudley brings listeners inside the nefarious group to tell a larger story of how a flawed US and Central American policy, and exploitative economic systems, helped foster the gang and sustain it.

The definitive account of the most dangerous street gang in America - the MS-13 - as seen through the lives of one family caught in its malicious web. The MS-13 was born from war. In the 1980s, El Salvador was enmeshed in a bloody fight for control of the government. To escape the guerrilla assaults and death squads, many fled to the US and settled in Los Angeles. Among them were Alejandro and his six siblings. As a survival instinct, they formed a group called the Mara Salvatrucha Stoners, a relatively harmless social network bound by rock and roll.