MS-13 arranged ’black widow’ killing for insurance

Because “They come here out of love.”

TorontoSun: 

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — El Salvador’s brutal street gangs have been involved in every kind of criminal activity imaginable: drugs, extortion, prostitution, murder, kidnapping.

But even authorities were surprised when a woman escaped the Mara Salvatrucha gang and told prosecutors its members had kidnapped her and forced her into a “black widow” arranged marriage. After the wedding, her new husband was killed in order to collect an insurance policy.

The gang’s hook for her prospective husband was also novel: They advertised the woman as a U.S. citizen who could get her husband a coveted entry visa to the United States.

Hers is not the only such case. Prosecutors have located and are protecting another woman who was forced into the same scheme. They say that in the two cases, in 2014 and 2016, insurance policies worth $62,000 and $30,000 were either taken out or collected. They also are investigating two suspected cases involving insurances policies of about $15,000 apiece.

Prosecutors say their efforts at determining the scope of the scam are complicated by the fact that Mara Salvatrucha may be using its own female members — who are much less likely to talk — in the frauds. Or a more sinister possibility is that the gang is killing the women as well after the policies on their slain husbands are collected.  more here