Seeking to combat the spread of street gangs across international borders, the FBI will join forces with Los Angeles police and prosecutors next month to teach authorities from Mexico, El Salvador and other Latin American countries how to better track and investigate gang crime.
The three-day training in Los Angeles comes amid an alarming increase in "transnational" gangs that move between countries despite repeated efforts to dismantle their organizations and finances, authorities said.
The U.S. law enforcement officials will focus much of their attention on how they have dealt with local gangs that have gained footholds in Mexico and Central America.
Special attention will be given, for example, to the MS13 and 18th Street gangs, both of which began in Los Angeles but have branched out to Central America, federal officials said. About 12 of 17 members of the 18th Street gang arrested in Los Angeles in September were foreign nationals, the officials said.
The training will include discussions about which laws countries use -- or do not use -- to attack gang problems. El Salvador, for example, does not allow wiretapping, a strategy employed by U.S. authorities to monitor gang activity.
"Many of these countries are seeing an influence of street gangs that evolved in Los Angeles but are moving [there] because of deportation," said Lt. Paul Vernon, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department. "Many of these are hardened criminals."
The interagency training Feb. 7-9 will occur as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief William J. Bratton unveil their strategies for dealing with the city's own 39,000 gang members. They are expected to call for a multi-agency effort using court orders, injunctions and stepped-up enforcement to target Los Angeles' most dangerous gangs. Among those expected to attend the FBI summit are Bratton, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and representatives of the city attorney and district attorney.
They will be joined by agents from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, as well as the Justice Department's new assistant attorney general for gangs and violence.
Police officials from other cities in California, Virginia and Maryland are also scheduled to attend.
