Manager: Chelsea combating gang ties

The city of Chelsea spends hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on the “very difficult problem” of combating gang recruitment, a city official said yesterday following a Herald special report on the emerging East Side Money Gang’s turf war with rivals.

“We have all sorts of efforts we’re doing to try (to) deal with youth violence,” said City Manager Thomas G. Ambrosino. “The reality is, there are gangs that do exist and do try to entice young adults to join. We’re trying our best to deal with this problem, but it is a very difficult problem.”

The Herald reported yesterday that the East Side Money Gang, also known as ES$G and ESMG, is challenging the supremacy of the notorious MS13’s East Boston branch by using criminal alliances, including linking up with another Chelsea gang — 18th Street. Both ESMG and 18th Street members were named in a federal indictment last year, accused of forming a criminal network that is moving guns and drugs.

Ambrosino said the city spends about $200,000 a year on a summer youth initiative with a nonprofit, the Chelsea Collaborative. Another $75,000 is fed to the nonprofit ROCA, for two social workers who work with students who have been identified by school officials as “at risk,” Ambrosino said.

Norieliz De Jesus of the Chelsea Collaborative leads a group of teens in a “Youth Leadership Group” that “targets a lot of our immigrant youth who have recently arrived who don’t know the community and are at risk of being recruited, or youth we know who could benefit from programs to keep them off the street.”