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GANGS LIKE THE Mara Salvatrucha have spread their influence all over the Western Hemisphere, and one of the clearest signs that you’re dealing with a member is the garish tattoos that often adorn their bodies.
The designs of those tattoos are often different, specified by the individual and their gang, but there’s an underlying reason for why they get them, and it makes perfect business sense.
“There’s a weird economic reason for these tattoos: It makes these employees much easier for the cartel or the gang to keep hold of,” Tom Wainwright, author of Narconomics and former Economist reporter in Mexico City, told Business Insider.
“If you picture one of these gangs in El Salvador, where many of the members have tattoos, literally from head to toe, it’s much much harder for those employees to go and find a job somewhere else,” Wainwright added.
The Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13, is most closely associated with the head-to-toe tattoos.
‘Can’t work anywhere else’
Prisons in El Salvador and Honduras, where MS-13 is based, are full of current and former gang members coated with ink identifying their loyalties, whether they be to MS-13 or another Central American gang like Barrio 18, which is regarded as one of MS-13′s main rivals.
While the inkings are often inscrutable to outsiders, members of the gang world are familiar with their meanings. This helps them identify compatriots and prevents members from straying.
“These guys can’t find work anywhere else,” because the markings make it difficult for them to switch allegiances, Wainwright told Business Insider.
They can’t find work with a rival cartel, and so they have to stay working for the gang that they started off with. This makes them much cheaper and it means that the gang can treat them how they like.
Gang life
As these gangs have spread to places were anti-gang law-enforcement efforts are more robust — like the suburbs of Washington, DC — the tattoos have become a less central part of gang life.
Tattoo-removal programmes have also cropped up, as government and civil-society efforts to pull people away from gangs have ramped up.
But for MS-13 and other gangs, where proof of loyalty is vital, tattoos aren’t going anywhere.
And I think if you want to join a gang like the Mara Salvatrucha in El Salvador, you can’t join unless you get the tattoos.
- Christopher Woody for Business Insider
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Wow… who’d have thought charging c.400% tax on a product would incentivise a black economy in that product?
It was always going to happen with the continued increases in tax. Tax needs to be reduced but that wont happen so this will just get worse. Average levy on cigarettes in EU is 3.50. We charged 8 per box of 20. That’s just mental.
@John Duggan: The tax is because of health issues. If you didn’t know smoking is bad and ends up costing the state who have to provide public health care ..
@Alan Kenny: all in taxes and levies are more than €11 on an average €14 box of cigarettes. It’s not just mental, it’s egregious.
@Gavin Lynam: Do you have some figures on what smokers cost the health system, versus what they generate in taxes?
@Gavin Lynam: Obesity causes issues too, so maybe a 400% tax on all take away foods and restaurants then ? Like the way the sugar tax fixed so much.
@Gavin Lynam: i am pretty sure that you believe in fairies and dragons as well.
@Da Dell: And a tax on frozen food/pizzas in supermarkets and any product that contains any trace of unhealthiness. Also put a health levy on driving cause people are too lazy to walk which is costing the taxpayer in health costs.
So much for personal responsibility and personal freedom. These taxes do very little to improve peoples’ health. Irish people constantly think in terms of how much money they could generate but aren’t thinking about the education aspect. Education is the key to everything but we aren’t too fond of that here, clinging on to our traditional leaving cert and not teaching many real world skills or education.
@JusticeForJoe: Money isn’t the issue
@Larsen Cib: Still haven’t grown out of your superhero faze I see ..
@JusticeForJoe: smokers cost the state around 300 million more than they contribute in taxes every year.
@Alan Kenny: an the same will happen with wine an beer ,.
@Fakë Ăvatăř: do you have a source for that?
@Ian Kerrigan.: I compiled the data as part of a project about two years ago, the figure ranges between 3 to 4 hundred million a year going from 2010 to 2018, long and short of it is smoking is a drain on economy.
@Fakë Ăvatăř: utter b0ll0x
@Fakë Ăvatăř: that’s interesting because it’s been reported that smokers give over 30 million beyond what they cost the exchequer. So unless you can provide evidence I’m not going to believe you over economists on the matt Cooper show.
@Fakë Ăvatăř: During that period smokers contributed on average 1,200M each year in combined excise duties and tax. In other words, they paid for all of their own health costs and gave a further €800M for the health of others.
(Figures supplies by the Revenue Commissioners).
Nobody should be suprised… Tax anything that much and its basically an open invite to criminals in the black market…There is other ways but the tories we have in charge aren’t capable of thinking outside the box
Legalise and regulate. If it was legal there’d be none of these criminal enterprises. Oh wait…
@Mattress Dick: Unfortunately the biggest gangsters in the country are the ones regulating this industry, the main crime here is the tax is circa 80% of the purchase price.
@Mattress Dick: Yes you right, better to leave as is, as its easy to get and cheap plus added bonus of having access to nearly all ‘drugs’ from same source. If the Gov got involved they would just make a balls of it.
@Mark Malone: pretty much this.
@Mattress Dick: there you are again. Great support for the cause of legalisation. Dick says legal is better.
Pretending that the tax is for the health system is a joke. Today’s children are much better educated about the dangers and yet during the pandemic there has been an increase of young people smoking
@Ian James Burgess: unfortunately naive , not far thinking people do believe in these fairy tales.
The profits from tobacco smuggling are on par with those from drugs, but the penalties for getting caught are a laugh. Basically a smack on the back of the hand.
Why don’t they follow these drug finds back to make mass arrests. Seizing stuff at the ports is lazy and unimaginative.
They haven’t gone away, you know.
have your say