‘Use your voice’: FBI launches MS-13 tip line
The FBI has launched a new tip line that allows people to report information to authorities about the violent street gang MS-13.
The tip line was introduced on Tuesday in Maryland, a state that has seen a disproportionate number of crimes and murder related to the Salvadorian street gang. U.S. Attorney for Maryland Robert Hur said that the hotline shows that law enforcement is working to end MS-13’s “heinous crimes.”
“I understand that some victims and witnesses do not call law enforcement,” Hur said. “We want all Marylanders to know that we are working hard to defeat the gang, and we are succeeding.”
The tip line, 1-866-STP-MS13, can be reached 24/7 and has the option for callers to talk with and report information in Spanish. The goal is to streamline the reporting process and create a public channel between law enforcement and communities that the gang terrorizes.
“We want people who are being victimized by the gang to know and to understand that that can end,” Hur said.
To promote the tip line, the FBI’s office in Baltimore released a clip of a woman with her identity and voice obscured, describing the pain that the gang caused her family. Talking in Spanish, she spoke about how they extorted her for years, and if she didn’t pay every week, the gang threatened to hurt her family.
The gang, also known as Mara Salvatrucha, is largely comprised of immigrants from El Salvador and is known for its ruthless, violent crimes. President Trump has often spoken out against the gang and its brutality.
MS-13 has taken hold in northern Virginia and in the suburbs around Washington, D.C. Officials told the Washington Examiner that the prevalence of the gang in the area is because of the large population of Central American immigrants who have relocated to the cities around the nation’s capital.
The gang is known to traffic humans and drugs, extort immigrants, and commit heinous crimes such as murder. Officials have also seen the gang recruiting teenagers from El Salvador to come to the United States and join the criminal enterprise.
FBI special agent Jennifer Boone said that those affected by MS-13 should no longer remain silent.
“We must not allow fear and silence to be weapons MS-13 is allowed to use,” she said. “Use your voice to tell them, no more.”
The new national tip line 1-866-STP-MS13 (1-866-787-6713).
