Tattoo

A tattoo is a marking on the body, made by injecting ink under the skin to permanently change its pigment.

Most members of the street gang Mara Salvatrucha were heavily tattooed with the gang's iconography, which often included the phrase "Emese," a contraction of the Spanish for the gang's initials "MS."

Coral Snake, a secret NSA-funded Marine Corps unit led by Colonel Ron Samuels, was recognizable by the tattoo of a coral snake that its members received on their wrists.

Ramon and Hector Salazar and many of their associates, including Jack Bauer, had a distinctive tattoo on their inner forearms.


 * The Salazar tattoo was a representation of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a famous and highly revered Catholic symbol originating in Mexico.

Red Square tattoos acted as testimonials to the bearer's past experience. In addition to the group's broken cross symbol, which most members had, an eight-pointed star indicated membership in the organization's criminal elite. One member had a tattoo of a Russian palace with three spires, indicating three life sentences in IK-10, a Siberian prison camp.