Mara Salvatrucha program that ended up being an escape route for gang members fleeing El Salvador

SAN SALVADOR – The Mara Salvatrucha has spent seven years consolidating a possible escape route to Mexico in case its structure needs to get its head out of El Salvador. The plan was disclosed in early March through a accusation of the United States Department of Justice against 14 founding members of the gang.

“Several leaders were selected to carry out the operations of the Mara Salvatrucha in Mexico in the event that the Salvadoran government attempted to shut down the organization’s leadership structure in El Salvador,” the New York District prosecutor’s indictment states.

The plan called “Mexico Program” began in 2015 with the purpose of structuring and improving the presence of the gang in that country. In addition to facilitating communications with leaders in the United States and increasing the economic power of the structure. However, it also had the purpose of consolidating a “second command structure” as a contingency plan against the political situation in El Salvador.

“The Mexico program did not seek to control a territory in that country. Nor was it initially seeking to receive refugees. The program was born to work coyotaje networks (illegal passage of migrants), drugs, money, businesses… but the 2015 war (between the government of El Salvador and the gangs) meant that the program did become a kind of escape route ”, he said to the voice of americaJuan Martínez d’Aubuisson, sociocultural anthropologist and researcher of the gang phenomenon in the Americas.

In 2015, after the breakdown of a truce between the government of Mauricio Funes and the gangs, homicides in that country rose to 103 per 100,000 inhabitants. A murder rate not seen even in the Salvadoran civil war. This forced the leftist government of Salvador Sánchez Cerén to declare military war on the gangs. A coup that forced the Mara Salvatrucha to restructure itself.

“The structure of the gang was administrative, not warlike. That is why the police and the army defeated the gangs militarily in those years”, adds d’Aubuisson. “Somehow that made the Mexico program begin to receive people… and now with this exception regime it tried, without being massive, to receive some people who were fleeing”.

El Salvador has been under an emergency regime for a year after a violent wave of murders caused by Salvadoran gangs at the end of March last year. The massacre that killed 87 people in one weekend caused the government of Nayib Bukele to ask Congress to approve an emergency regime that has removed the gangs from the neighborhoods where they operated.

Both the Mara Salvatrucha and the Barrio 18 in their two factions, Sureños and Revolucionarios, have been left almost unstructured in El Salvador, according to what the authorities of that country have indicated. Of 118,000 members enlisted in the gangs, the Salvadoran Police claims to have captured more than 66,000 in the year that the country has been under an emergency regime. This is in addition to the 19,000 gang members who were in prison prior to the regime. The rest, they say, have fled.

“Many gang members have fled. Not necessarily organized. They have fled on their own and have sought refuge in Honduras and Guatemala. I understand that there are entire cliques (groups) that have fled to those countries. Others to Mexico”, adds the anthropologist d’Aubuisson, who points out that there are important indications that the gang’s social base, that is, the “street soldiers”, have received a real onslaught with the emergency regime.

Contrary to the situation with the ranfleros (founding heads or leaders) who have not been extradited to the United States despite being claimed by the North American nation, and have not paraded in state propaganda promoting a “war against gangs.”

Although the magnitude of the blow to the gang structures is still unknown, d’Aubuisson does share the idea that, at least in the streets, the gangs are unstructured.

How do the “Programs” work in the gang?

Gang programs, such as “Programa México,” are the way these structures organize their cliques (groups of gang members) for a specific purpose such as creating connections to drug trafficking, territorial disputes, and “providing safe haven for their gangs.” members wanted by law enforcement,” the US prosecutor’s indictment highlights.

“The Mara Salvatrucha is organized by hundreds of cells or cliques that operate in more than seven countries in America and Europe. (The programs) normally correspond to a geographical area or a historical relationship,” adds Carlos García, journalist and researcher for the platform. InSight Crime, which seeks to deepen the debate on organized crime in the Americas.

Some of those programs are “East Coast Program” and “Los Angeles Program”, in the United States; “Mexico Program” in Mexico and “Freedom Program” and “Central Program” in El Salvador, among others. With which the gang moves money, drugs and other illicit.

The “Mexico Program” that started as a business and could now be a refuge for gang members fleeing El Salvador was started by Hugo Armando Quinteros Mineros, known as “Flaco de Francis Locos”, a ranflero founder of the Mara Salvatrucha apparently imprisoned in El Salvador who, at the beginning of March, was denied extradition to the United States by the government of Nayib Bukele.

Several gang leaders have settled in Mexico since 2014 under the leadership of Flaco de Francis Locos. There, according to the prosecutor’s accusation, they were related to the powerful drug trafficking groups in that country.

“The Mexico Program Leaders sought to exploit migration routes in Mexico to provide strategic and monetary advantages to MS-13; they extorted migrant groups and collected protection fees for safe passage. Members of MS-13 were smuggled from Mexico to various locations throughout the United States, including the Eastern District of New York,” the prosecution adds.

With the recent arrests of Park View’s Marlon Menjívar aka Rojo and Vladimir Antonio Arévalo aka Vampiro, the blow to the program could be fatal.

Neighboring countries reinforce their borders

There is no exact data on how many Salvadoran gang members have fled to neighboring countries. However, Guatemala and Honduras, the border countries with El Salvador, have reported several arrests of gang members.

As of March 14, the Guatemalan Minister of the Interior, David Napoleón Barrientos, reported the capture of 13 Salvadoran gang members in Guatemalan territory. This number is added to the 115 captured at the end of 2022.

While Honduras, since December of last year, has maintained at least 800 security elements deployed on the borders with El Salvador to prevent gang members from entering Honduran territory. Security of that country has reported several captures.

Salvadorans can enter Honduras or Guatemala only with the Unique Identity Document. The main problem pointed out by the authorities of neighboring countries are the “blind spots” near the borders, that is, the unofficial routes through which one can enter these countries without being detected by the immigration authorities. It is impossible, for the moment, to know how many Salvadoran gang members have fled El Salvador through illegal routes.

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