More than 1,000 suspected gang members arrested in a massive nationwide ICE sweep.

The six-week raid under the Trump administration, the biggest of its kind to date.

Those arrested accused of drug trafficking, human [music] smuggling, sex trafficking, and murder.

More than 100 are affiliated with the dangerous MS-13 [music] gang you’ve been hearing a lot about lately.

The biggest race in Houston and New York City.

Across 12 US cities, in one single night, doors were smashed open coast to coast.

At exactly 5:00 a.m.

across four time zones, more than 3,500 federal agents moved at once.

Los Angeles, Houston, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Washington DC, Boston, Charlotte, and Nashville.

Within 72 hours, 8,100 MS-13 members were in handcuffs, weapons seized, drug routes cut.

A network officials called Untouchable was shattered.

This wasn’t a normal raid.

This was the largest gang takedown in American history known as Operation Iron.

If you’re wondering how a street gang grew powerful enough to need a nationwide militarystyle response, stay with us, tap like and subscribe now because what you’re about to hear goes far deeper than anyone imagined.

For Maria Rodriguez, the warning signs didn’t come from headlines or police sirens.

They came at her dinner table in Houston.

Her 15-year-old son, Miguel, stopped coming home on time.

Then came the new clothes, a new phone, cash in his pockets, and tattoos he hid under long sleeves, even in the Texas heat.

When she asked questions, Miguel had answers ready.

Odd jobs, just art, school fights.

But Maria knew the truth because she’d seen it before in El Salvador.

Her nephew had gone down the same road.

MS-13 had taken her son.

She begged him to stop seeing the older boys.

She threatened to send him back to family.

Miguel didn’t argue.

He just looked at her and said, “I can’t leave, mama.

They own me now.

If I try, they’ll kill you.

” Maria was undocumented, working two jobs, barely spoke English, and feared the police more than the gang.

So, she stayed silent and watched her son disappear.

What Maria didn’t know was that MS-13 was no longer just a street gang.

It had become the ground level army for one of the most violent cartels in the world, Mexico’s Halisco New Generation Cartel, orQing.

For 3 years, federal investigators had been quietly watching MS-13 evolve into something far more dangerous.

MS-13 began in Los Angeles in the 1980s, formed by Salvadoran immigrants fleeing civil war.

For decades, it was brutal but local.

By the early 2000s, it had about 10,000 members, mostly in California, Texas, and the East Coast.

Then, between 2018 and 2024, everything changed.

Membership exploded past 65,000.

The gang expanded into 12 major cities at once.

Violence became disciplined.

Operations became structured.

Money jumped from millions to hundreds of millions every year.

The turning point came in 2021 when an MS-13 member arrested in Atlanta for murder agreed to cooperate.

What he told the FBI changed everything.

MS-13 hadn’t just grown.

It had been absorbed.

Chung identified MS-13 as the perfect tool for US expansion.

They already controlled neighborhoods, terrified rivals, and recruited vulnerable immigrant teens who wanted protection and belonging.

Chung approached MS-13 leadership with what sounded like a choice, but wasn’t.

Work for us.

Distribute our drugs, enforce our territories, and you’ll gain power and money.

Refuse, and we’ll wipe you out.

MS-13 accepted and overnight transformed from scattered street clicks into a cartel style network.

Neighborhood clicks were reorganized into regional cells.

Each city had a program director reporting directly to cartel coordinators in Mexico.

Under them were shot callers managing territory, drugs, and money.

Street soldiers moved product and carried out violence.

Specialized enforcement units handled discipline, assassinations, and rival elimination.

Every member had a role in the cartel supply chain.

MS13 wasn’t independent anymore.

It was an extension ofQing power inside the United States.

That’s when the federal government launched what would become Operation Iron.

FBI, ICE Homeland Security Investigations, D ATF, and local police from 12 cities joined forces.

A command center was set up in Quanico, Virginia.

The mission was simple but massive.

Identify every MS-13 member, map their cartel links, build airtight cases, and take the entire network down at once before it could adapt.

As evidence poured in, investigators realized MS-13 wasn’t just selling drugs.

It was running protection rackets, human trafficking, weapons smuggling, extortion schemes, and contract killings.

Financial records showed the gang generated about 1.

2 billion a year.

They moved 4.

2 tons of fentanyl, 6 tons of meth, and three tons of cocaine annually.

Thousands of immigrant-owned businesses paid weekly protection money or faced violence.

Planning the takedown required military level coordination.

over 3,500 agents, 147 locations, four time zones, one synchronized strike.

In the first week of February 2024, teams moved simultaneously.

In Los Angeles, 680 agents hit 340 locations.

Houston saw 420 agents raid 187 sites.

New York had 520 agents across 246 locations.

Similar scenes played out in every targeted city.

The raids were fast, chaotic, but controlled.

Within 72 hours, 8,100 MS-13 members were arrested.

The seizures stunned even veteran agents.

Authorities confiscated 4.

2 tons of fentanyl, 6 tons of methamphetamine, and three tons of cocaine worth over $890 million on the street.

They seized 340 million in cash and recovered 1,847 firearms, many linked to unsolved murders.

Digital evidence was even more damaging.

Phones and laptops revealed direct communication with CJing leaders, financial ledgers, and documentation tying MS-13 to more than 200 murders over 5 years.

Maria Rodriguez learned her son Miguel had been arrested.

He was 17, recruited at 15, facing federal charges.

In court, she wrote that MS-13 gave him the family and protection he couldn’t find elsewhere, then destroyed his future.

Miguel was one of hundreds of juveniles caught in the operation.

Prosecutors struggled with how to handle kids who were victims and offenders at the same time.

Operation Iron proved gangs are no longer local problems.

They are cartel controlled networks that exploit vulnerable youth and poison entire communities.

Arrests alone won’t end it if poverty, isolation, and fear remain.

Criminal organizations adapt.

The fight never truly ends.

If you believe cartelbacked gangs deserve to be exposed and stopped, hit like.

If you care about protecting young people from recruitment, comment below.

And if you want us to keep breaking down stories like this with real detail and real impact, make sure you subscribe and share this video because this fight isn’t over.

Not in 12 cities, not in America, and not anywhere gangs still see kids as soldiers instead of human beings.