The Mara Salvatrucha (MS 13) gang is now a tier one criminal, political, military and economic threat in the Northern Triangle. While it employs differing strategies from country to country, the organization nonetheless competes with – and often defeats – the state in important theaters of operation. The evolution was described by one gang expert in El Salvador as moving from "gangsters to political conspirators," visible in the spikes in gang-driven homicide rates (up to 40 a day when necessary) when the gangs are seeking to pressure the government for concessions on key issues.

This study focuses on the MS 13 in Honduras and El Salvador, where it represents an existential threat to the viability of the state. In both countries, the gang has achieved new levels of power and sophistication, via increased revenues from its control of multiple steps in the cocaine supply chain. Now, the MS 13 is not solely involved in transporting cocaine; it also unloads shipments arriving by air from Venezuela and in Honduras runs laboratories that transform coca paste – mostly from Colombia - to hydrochloric acid (HCl).