Fact Check: Navy SEAL Team Did NOT 'Hunt' MS-13 Members In Los Angeles -- Navy Denied

Fact Check

  • by: Marlo Lee
Fact Check: Navy SEAL Team Did NOT 'Hunt' MS-13 Members In Los Angeles -- Navy Denied 'No Truth'

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 latest Navy press releases nor a Google News search contained any evidence these events happened.

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:

Screenshot 2024-11-26 at 9.28.13 AM.png

(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.

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Marlo Lee is a fact checker at Lead Stories. She is a graduate of Howard University with a B.S. in Biology. Her interest in fact checking started in college, when she realized how important it became in American politics. She lives in Maryland.

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