18th Street gang

18th Street Gang

18th Street Gang Graffiti
Founded	1960s
Years active	1960s – present
Territory	Central America, United States, Mexico
Ethnicity	Mainly Mexicans, Salvadorans, Hondurans and other Latin Americans
Criminal activities	Drug trafficking, assault, arson, robbery, kidnapping, pandering, money laundering, extortion, arms trafficking, human trafficking, theft, murder, racketeering, illegal immigration, illegal gambling, identity document forgery and fraud
Allies	Mexican Mafia
Rivals	Mara Salvatrucha, Surenos, Bloods, Crips (certain sets), The Avenues

18th Street gang, also known as Calle 18, Barrio 18, La18 or Mara-18 in Central America, is a multi-ethnic transnational criminal organization that started as a street gang in the Rampart area of Los Angeles, California. They are considered to be the largest transnational criminal gang in Los Angeles and it is estimated that there are tens of thousands of members in Los Angeles County alone. Their wide-ranging illegal activities and notoriety has come to the attention of the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In the early 2000s, the government initiated raids against known and suspected gang members netting hundreds of arrests across the country.

18th Street gang started near 18th Street and Union Avenue in the Rampart District of Los Angeles. There is conflicting information as to the exact area, but this is a generally accepted area by most academic sources. They were originally part of Clanton 14 but wanted to make a separate clique called Clanton 18th Street and allow immigrants the opportunity to join. This proposal was rejected by the Clanton 14, which led to the formation of the 18th Street gang. The two gangs have been bitter rivals ever since. The 18th Street gang grew by expanding its membership to other nationalities and races, and it was among the first multiracial, multi-ethnic gangs in Los Angeles. In the beginning, they were made up largely of second-generation Hispanics. As the 18th Street gang began to battle with more established Hispanic gangs, they began to recruit outside the Hispanic community. There are approximately 200 separate individual autonomous gangs operating under the same name within separate barrios in the San Fernando Valley, the San Gabriel Valley, South Bay, Riverside California, East Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, Pico Union, Inglewood, Lynwood, South Gate, Huntington Park, Maywood, Long Beach, Orange County, and Los Angeles' Westside, according to the latest figures from the NDIC. In the early 2000s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation initiated wide-scale raids against known and suspected gang members, netting hundreds of arrests across the country.