Nov. 11 (UPI) -- A jury in Los Angeles convicted five members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang on Monday for participating in a string of violent murders in order to improve their status in the organization.
The U.S. Justice Department announced the verdict in a press release stating that the victims were strangled, shot, stabbed with a machete or beaten with a baseball bat. Some victims were thrown off a cliff or down a hill in the Angeles National Forest.
MS-13 has been target of the Trump administration's hardline approach to crime, going so far as to label the gang as a "terrorist organization." The case follows other convictions and arrests of the gang's members in other states.
"These convictions mark one of the most significant victories against MS-13's Los Angeles network in decades," Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said in a statement that noted how his office helped prosecute the case.
Related
