The Foreign Service Journal, October 2018

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2018 29 Transnational street gangs are a growing problem for communities and law enforcement across the United States. State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security is part of the solution. BY CHR I STOPHER “ KA I ” FORNES THE FRONT-LINE INITIATIVE: Combating Transnational Criminal Organizations Special Agent Christopher “ Kai ” Fornes served as the assistant regional security officer-investigator at Embassy San Salvador from 2016 to 2018. During 14 years with the State Department, he has also served as the Bureau of Diplomatic Security’s representative to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and as the department’s representative to the Command and Staff College, where he earned his M.S. degree. He has also served in the New York Field Office, the Office of Criminal Fraud Investigations and the Honolulu Resident Office. Overseas, he has served at Embassy Athens managing a $31.1 million guard contract and serving as RSO for Consulate General Thessaloniki. Prior to joining the Department of State, Kai served in the U.S. Navy with 15 years of special operations experience. L ocal and regional street gangs have always been a problem for local police depart- ments. But, as Homeland Security Investi- gations Special Agent Angel Melendez and U.S. Marshall John Gibbons note in their recent article for The Police Chief magazine, “The Perfect Storm: The Convergence of Gangs and Transnational Crime,” the pas t few decades have seen the emergence in American cities of gangs whose criminal activity takes place in more than one country. These transnational gangs, which often have sophisticated networks and exploit smuggling routes used to bring narcotics, people and proceeds across international borders illegally, are a growing challenge for local communities and for law enforce- ment across the United States. In a February 2017 Presidential Executive Order on Enforcing Federal Law with Respect to Trans- national Criminal Organizations and Preventing International Trafficking, the Trump administration mandated an increased focus on combating criminal gangs and cartels. Take, for example, La Mara Salvatrucha. Better known as MS-13, this notoriously violent gang that was designated a prior- ity in October 2017 by the Department of Justice’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces tops the list of threats for many major U.S. cities. The FBI estimates that there may be up to 10,000 MS-13 members living in the United States, many of whom emigrated from Central America. Although the gang formed in Los Angeles decades ago, its leadership is based in the “Northern Triangle”—El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras— ON COMBATING TRANSNATIONAL CRIME FOCUS