Brutal Mara Salvatrucha – known as MS-13 have been named the deadliest gang in the world because of their bloodthirsty mission to commit the most murders.
Notorious for its horrific killings, rape, drug trafficking and revenge attacks, the abhorrent group is already feared across the world.
More than a dozen members of the LA-based collective have been charged in connection with at least eight murders many involving high school students across the US in the last month.
MS-13 has long been associated with devil worship and often uses Satanic symbolism, including its trademark devil’s horns hand signal.
But now evidence of members’ alleged participation in Satanic murders has been presented in court in the US.
Horror details of MS-13 crimes have been revealed in police documents in two separate cases underway in New York and Texas.
Miguel Alvarez-Flores, 22, and Diego Hernandez-Rivera, 18, have been charged with the murder of a 15-year-old girl in Houston, Texas, as part of a Satanic ritual.
The immigrants from El Salvador, Central America, have also been charged with the kidnap, torture and rape of two other teens.
A 14-year-old girl allegedly held hostage by Alvarez-Flores – believed to be MS-13 leader his co-accused Hernandez-Rivera and four other gang members, is at the centre of the prosecution.
According to court documents, the girl told police she was plied with alcohol and drugs, sexually assaulted by a gang member and held down while Alvarez-Flores tattooed an image of the Grim Reaper on her leg.
During her 18 days in captivity, she met a young girl named Genesis, another hostage who she claimed was later murdered for insulting a Satanic shrine the gang leader had set up.
On February 16, the tortured body of a girl believed to be aged between 15 and 25 was found.
Police struggled to identify her for almost two weeks before confirming her remains belonged to Genesis Conejo, a 15-year-old reported missing by her family.
Genesis’s body had been dumped in a street with “a ring of elephants” around one finger and bullet holes in her head and chest.
In a separate case, 10 MS-13 members have been indicted over seven murders, including the slaying of two young girls, in New York’s Long Island.
Best friends Nisa Mickens, 15, and Kayla Cuevas, 16, were beaten with baseball bats and hacked with a machete during an attack that began when gang members spotted them walking together.
The gang has been blamed for 30 other killings on Long Island since 2010.
“For far too long, MS-13 has been meting out their own version of the death penalty,” New York Attorney Robert Capers said.
