The inquiries focus on the alleged negotiations between the Salvadoran president and drug gangs.
El Salvador’s Attorney General’s Office (FGR) announced on Friday the beginning of an investigation into a «possible negotiation with gang members» by the Government of Nayib Bukele (in power since 2019), after an extensive journalistic investigation revealed evidence of such understandings.
These are alleged negotiations that would have occurred between people around President Nayib Bukele and the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), one of the main organized drug trafficking gangs in the Central American country. The alleged «agreement» is known in local political jargon as «truce» and would have made it possible to show, artificially, several days without homicides in El Salvador.
As part of the investigations, and following the trail of the publications of the El Faro medium, specialized prosecutors have carried out searches at the headquarters of the General Directorate of Penal Centers, as well as local jails in two western departments, in search of evidence that shows such links .
The Prosecutor’s Office would have to prove that, as the newspaper revealed, the hundreds of reports from the prison system in which numerous secret meetings between officials of the Bukele government and gang leaders are documented. Likewise, the entity would have to verify the veracity of intelligence reports in which the agreement is explained.
The exchange of actions would have consisted of alleged prison benefits for MS-13 inmates in exchange for a reduction in homicides in one of the most insecure countries in Central America, as well as control of territories with a view to the legislative elections next March. in which Bukele seeks to achieve a parliamentary majority that he does not currently have.
The MS-13 would ensure that its incarcerated members could have a differentiated diet, transfer of aggressive guards with the gang members or reverse the decision to mix members of different drug trafficking groups in the same cells. All the details are given on these supposed benefits in the documents.
According to the journalistic investigation, they even propose to lighten the maximum security regime, repeal laws and give the gang members «benefits» in case Bukele’s party wins the elections next February.
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