Did a Navy SEAL team based in California start "hunting MS-13 members in the greater Los Angeles area" and have they already "eliminated" 50 members of MS-13? No, that's not true: The U.S. Navy told Lead Stories that there was "no truth" to this claim. Neither the Navy's press releases nor a Google News search turned up any evidence that this was true.
The claim appeared in a post on X (archived here) on November 22, 2024. The caption read:
Breaking: reports that a SEAL Team based in Coronado #California has gone rogue
They are hunting MS-13 members in the greater Los Angeles area
The rogue SEAL unit has reportedly eliminated over 50 MS-13 gang members including high ranking officers
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Nov 26 13:30:45 2024 UTC)
A research journal article published in 2009 by a U.S. Department of Justice program defines MS-13 as a gang that was formed by Salvadoran immigrants who came to the United States (archived here).
The X post did not provide any evidence to back up its claim.
Lead Stories contacted the U.S. Navy about the claim. In a November 26, 2024, email, Lauren Larar, a public affairs officer for the Navy, said:
There is no truth to this.
A Google search of the U.S. Navy's press releases did not include a statement about this claim as of November 26, 2024 (archived here).
A Google News search (archived here) of keywords concerning this post did not yield any results that would corroborate this claim.
More Lead Stories fact checks of claims surrounding MS-13 are here.
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims concerning Los Angeles are here.
