Those who paid stayed in business. Those who didn't were tracked down and killed, according to a federal indictment unsealed here last week. Last week's indictments of 16 men alleged to be high-ranking members of the Mexican Mafia disrupted the gang's brutal criminal enterprises. But some experts say it's only a first step in stamping it out. This has not incapacitated the organization.
Authorities say the gang is organized in a paramilitary hierarchy.
The long-term significance of the arrests will be gauged early next year, when the city and county tally the total number of homicides for 1998, Marin said. At least one former Texas prison official, however, said the arrests likely will do little to curb the proliferation of the gang, whose known membership has grown from 653 in 1992 to 1,425 this year. Some prison officials estimate a significant percentage of the system's 10,000 suspected gang members also belong to the Mexican Mafia, which accounts for 28 percent of the known gang population. They acknowledge imprisoned Mexican Mafia leaders for years have been able to order soldiers inside and outside prison walls to participate in criminal enterprises. In 1990, the homicide count in San Antonio exceeded 200 for the first time.