Before El Salvador established a exception regime Against the gangs, the Central American country already had approximately 16,000 gang members in prison, among them several founding leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha, known as members of the Ranfla Nacional.
Some gang members from El Salvador have been extradited to the United States, but none accused of terrorism, and none members of the Ranfla Nacional.
Since last year, the US has been searching for 27 leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha, of which 14 are founding members of the criminal organization and others direct operations in the United States, Mexico and El Salvador, according to the Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
Of the list of 14 founders, two are on the run, according to bulletins released by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), while a third, Elmer Canales, is in Mexico after being released from prison in El Salvador when he was still a child. pending sentences, according to reports.
The rest, according to the Salvadoran authorities, are imprisoned in the maximum security prison known as Zacatecoluca, in El Salvador, although press reports indicate that four of them would have been released from prison, at least temporarily, in 2021.
On February 24, the Department of Justice for the Eastern District of New York charged 13 other MS leaders with conspiracy to extort money, conspiracy to offer or conceal material support to terrorists, and narco-terrorist conspiracy.
Although it is not about the founding leaders, in this block there are heads of the Mara Salvatrucha responsible for “directing gang activities in El Salvador, the United States and Mexico,” according to the new document presented by the Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
Of the 13 indicated, three were captured in Mexico and handed over by the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the end of February of this year. Four more are still at large, and the rest, according to the Justice Department, are being held in Salvadoran prisons.
El Salvador prevents extraditions
MS-13 was declared “international criminal organization” by the US in 2012 and “terrorist organization” by El Salvador in 2015. The US Department of Justice had already prosecuted MS-13 under the RICO Law (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act). During the administration of President Barack Obama, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) maintained MS-13 as a national security threat.
In the era of President Donald Trump, the US Attorney General accused of terrorism gang member Eliú Melgar Díaz, alias “Blue de gánster”, an MS leader whose rank in the gang is lower than that of the members of the Ranfla Nacional or founders.
Nayib Bukele had already been president of El Salvador for a year when US prosecutors requested Melgar Díaz’s extradition, but the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador, appointed on May 1, 2021 by the pro-government Assembly, refused to extradite him.
The attorney general of El Salvador, Rodolfo Delgado, said at the time that the decision was his, since he considered that the gang member should first face justice in El Salvador.
Three days before the extradition deadline expired, Melgar Díaz He was sentenced to 39 years in prison in the Central American country. In other words, he will be able to answer for his actions before the American courts until after 2060.
Given the fact, the Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York formally presented a list with the names of 14 long-standing gang members of the Mara Salvatrucha in El Salvador, targets of US justice. This time, he was not seeking to extradite a lower-ranking leader but rather the ranfleros originals or founders of the gang.
The US Attorney’s Office asserts in the indictment that the Mara Salvatrucha “demanded that the government of El Salvador refuse to extradite the leaders of the MS, including the Ranfla Nacional, for prosecution in the United States.”
The first leader of the National Ranfla of the Mara Salvatrucha to be requested for extradition by the United States was Hugo Armando Quinteros Mineros, alias “Flaco de Francis”, in 2021, but the Court of El Salvador froze the extradition.
according to a investigation from the Salvadoran milieu The printing pressa court in El Salvador sentenced Quinteros Mineros to 14 years in prison one day before the deadline for his extradition to the US.
These accusations occur in the midst of an offensive by the Salvadoran government against the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs, whose ranks have been hit after the emergency regime was established at the end of March 2022.
However, neither President Bukele nor his Security Cabinet have ruled on the Supreme Court’s refusal to extradite the heads of the Mara Salvatrucha.
The Supreme Court of El Salvador did not respond to a request for comment from the voice of america for this report.
A strong hand that dismantles the gangs in the neighborhoods
Before March 2022, prior to the start of the emergency regime in El Salvador, it was unthinkable to enter neighborhoods stalked by gangs. However, various media, including the voice of america, they traveled several communities that for years carried the stigma of being the most dangerous neighborhoods in El Salvador.
In the midst of questions over the Supreme Court’s restraint before the extradition of the heads of the Mara Salvatrucha, Bukele has won the support of a large part of the population with his strategy to get the gangs out of the neighborhoods.
After thousands of murders and extortion complaints in recent decades, El Salvador could be closing the bloody chapter written by the Mara Salvatrucha and the Barrio 18 in the Central American country.
From 105 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants a few years ago, El Salvador has dropped to 7.8 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2022. And this year, the trend is even lower.
However, this year El Salvador has, for the third time, the decision to extradite or not another of the leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha, whose extradition period expires in May of this year.
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