HomeNewsBriefHonduras Police Take On Barrio 18
BRIEF

Honduras Police Take On Barrio 18

BARRIO 18 / 7 JAN 2013 BY JEREMY MCDERMOTT EN

After a shootout with gang members in downtown San Pedro Sula, Honduran police raided a safe house of the Barrio 18 street gang, discovering an arsenal of weapons, along with police uniforms and IDs.

The shootout and car chase, which took place on January 2, led Honduran police to a luxury residence in Honduras' second largest city, El Heraldo reported. When police entered the house, they found they had stumbled on what they believed to be a headquarters of Barrio 18. The five men in the residence, following an intervention by a bishop called by the gang members, surrendered without a fight. 

The police seized weapons including automatic rifles, some with grenade launchers attached. Also seized was an array of police equipment, including police badges, bullet-proof vests, hats, shirts, and fluorescent jackets with markings of the traffic police. 

At least one of the detainees, Oved Isai Aleman Izcoa, alias "El Tacoma," is believed to be a senior Barrio 18 leader.

InSight Crime Analysis

The Mara gangs in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras appear to be increasing in sophistication and strength. In El Salvador, from where the Mara gangs, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18, spread into Central America, the gangs have called a truce. The truce has not only led to a significant drop in homicides, but has allowed the two gangs to better organize themselves, and become political protagonists.

In Guatemala, the tendency is the same, with both gangs developing centralized leadership and increasing control over the disparate street gangs, or "cliques," spread across the country. This increasing sophistication has prompted the US Treasury to place sanctions on Mara Salvatrucha, placing it in the same league as Mexico's Zetas and Japan's Yakuza.

So far however, there has been little indication of Honduras' Mara gangs making the leap into serious transnational organized crime, although they have been forced to react to sustained government offensives.

What is clear, however, is that the Mara gangs affiliated to both Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 have open channels between the different countries. It is unlikely that changes in organization in both El Salvador and Guatemala are not having some effect in Honduras.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

COCAINE / 7 JUL 2022

When brothers Seth and Roberto Paisano Wood were released from prison and returned to their hometown of Brus Laguna, in…

CACHIROS / 23 MAR 2021

Usually loath to name sitting presidents in criminal cases, prosecutors in the United States have made an exception for Honduran…

EL SALVADOR / 10 JAN 2023

Extortion in Latin America continues to bring in fortunes for criminal gangs. So how do they do it?…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela Coverage Continues to be Highlighted

3 MAR 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-director Jeremy McDermott was the featured guest on the Americas Quarterly podcast, where he provided an expert overview of the changing dynamics…

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela's Organized Crime Top 10 Attracts Attention

24 FEB 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published its ranking of Venezuela’s ten organized crime groups to accompany the launch of the Venezuela Organized Crime Observatory. Read…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime on El País Podcast

10 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-founder, Jeremy McDermott, was among experts featured in an El País podcast on the progress of Colombia’s nascent peace process.

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Interviewed by Associated Press

3 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime’s Co-director Jeremy McDermott was interviewed by the Associated Press on developments in Haiti as the country continues its prolonged collapse. McDermott’s words were republished around the world,…

THE ORGANIZATION

Escaping Barrio 18

27 JAN 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published an investigation charting the story of Desafío, a 28-year-old Barrio 18 gang member who is desperate to escape gang life. But there’s one problem: he’s…