CHARLOTTE -- A federal grand jury indicted 26 suspected members of an international gang accused in a cross-border drug ring, according to court documents unsealed Tuesday.

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey unsealed a federal indictment that charges people believed to be members of the MS-13 gang with federal racketeering for forming a drug trafficking ring that sold cocaine, marijuana and narcotics, and of committing multiple robberies.

Some face charges in four slayings in Greensboro and Charlotte.

"MS-13 is an extremely violent gang ... Today's indictment is merely the latest sign of the gang's reach and it shows the breadth and seriousness of the crimes that MS-13 members are alleged to have committed," Mukasey said at a news conference in Charlotte.

Authorities fanned out across Charlotte Tuesday, arresting suspected gang members at several apartment complexes. Twenty of the men named in the 55-count indictment were in custody by the afternoon. Several were already in jail on other charges, U.S. Attorney Gretchen Shappert said. Authorities declined to release the names of the suspects who escaped arrest.

Federal authorities say MS-13 is one of the largest gangs in the nation with 10,000 members in the U.S., Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Investigators said one of the gang's active leaders, Manuel De Jesus Ayala, is imprisoned in El Salvador.

The indictment claims gang members hold regular meetings much like a government, discussing gang rules, problems and unity. The cliques met frequently in Charlotte, Greensboro, Durham and Columbia, S.C. and elsewhere, and the meetings often brought in gang guests from other states, according to court documents.

Criminal activity, especially directed at rival gangs, increased a member's position in the gang, according to the indictment.

Many of the leaders -- often called "shot callers" or "voices" -- are in prison in El Salvador, the indictment said. But prosecutors claim gang members paid dues at their meetings and often sent cash to those in prison, at times wiring money at the request of a leader.

This was not the first time federal authorities have targeted MS-13. They conducted a similar operation last year in Maryland, Mukasey said.

Shappert said there were about 8,000 gang members in North Carolina, including about 1,000 in Charlotte.

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