CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M; NARCO STATE

Exclusive-U.S. preparing indictments against Salvadoran officials over alleged pact with gangs -sources


Chief of the Salvadoran Penal System and Vice Minister of Justice and Public Security Osiris Luna Meza speaks during the inauguration of the new cell area, in Ayutuxtepeque


Fri, December 10, 2021
By Sarah Kinosian, Drazen Jorgic and Matt Spetalnick

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - U.S. authorities are preparing criminal charges against El Salvador's deputy justice minister Osiris Luna and another senior official, accusing them of negotiating a secret truce with gangs, two sources said, amid rising tensions between Washington and President Nayib Bukele's government.

According to the sources, the indictments are being prepared by a Department of Justice (DOJ) taskforce against Luna and Carlos Marroquin, a close Bukele ally who heads a Salvadoran government social welfare agency.

The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Luna and Marroquin on Wednesday, accusing them of cutting a deal with the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 gangs, in which the gangs would reduce violence in El Salvador and provide political backing in return for money and easier prison conditions.

Bukele has repeatedly denied his government negotiated any truce and denounced the sanctions.

The two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters the DOJ was now preparing criminal charges against Luna and Marroquin.

Luna, a member of Bukele's cabinet who is also in charge of El Salvador's prison system, and Marroquin did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The DOJ declined to comment.

The investigation is being handled by the Joint Task Force Vulcan (JTFV), a DOJ unit set up in 2019 to coordinate efforts by U.S. law enforcement agencies to dismantle MS-13, which has made inroads in U.S. cities and prisons, both sources said. U.S. officials say the gangs have ordered murders on U.S. soil from inside prisons in El Salvador.

The U.S. government claims broad authority to prosecute for a wide range of crimes committed abroad, including for acts committed by or against American citizens.

The task force has indicted several MS-13 leaders on terrorism charges in the Eastern District of New York.

El Salvador classifies MS-13 as a terrorist organization and U.S. prosecutors have accused some of the group's leaders of terrorist acts.

While the timeline has not been finalized, the indictments are expected in coming months, said the sources, who sought anonymity as they are not authorized to publicly speak about the planned indictments. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was involved in the probe, said one of the sources.

The FBI did not respond to requests for comment.

The two sources said the exact charges have not been finalized. The second source said they were likely to focus on corrupt practices and consorting with groups responsible for violent crimes.

Building on Wednesday's Treasury sanctions, the U.S. State Department on Thursday imposed a new set of penalties on Luna and Marroquin for "misappropriating public funds."

The sanctions and the indictments being drafted are likely to further strain relations between Bukele and Washington, where the Salvadoran leader is seen as an increasingly authoritarian figure.

Bukele on Thursday called the allegations "absurd."

"It's clear that the United States' government does not accept collaboration, friendship or alliances," said Bukele, a former mayor of the capital, San Salvador. "It's absolute submission or nothing."

URBAN CONTROL

U.S. authorities also discovered that the MS-13 gang had put out a hit on an FBI agent when they intercepted a small piece of paper, known as a "wila," that the gangs use to pass on coded messages to their members outside prisons. The agent fled El Salvador with his family, according to the first source.

Successive Salvadoran presidents have wrestled with how to curtail MS-13 and Barrio 18's control over urban areas, where violence and extortion have spurred waves of emigration to the United States.

Bukele was a staunch critic of a 2012 clandestine accord between the former government and gang leaders that collapsed two years later, resulting in a sharp increase in the country's murder rate and leading to the arrest of several government officials.

Rumors of a fresh accord swirled after the murder rate tumbled about 50% in the year after Bukele took office in June 2019.

Homicides dropped to 17 murders per 100,000 people in 2021, down from 51 in 2018, according to the National Police.

Bukele has credited the drop in homicides to his policies.

In September 2020, newspaper El Faro, citing internal government documents, reported that Luna and Marroquin offered better prison conditions to gang members in exchange for reduced homicide rates and electoral support for Bukele's party.

(Reporting by Sarah Kinosian in San Salvador, Drazen Jorgic in Mexico City and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Additional reporting by Nelson Renteria in San Salvador; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Rosalba O'Brien)

El Salvador government accused of falsely claiming to crack down on gangs while giving backhanders


Simeon Tegel
Sat, December 11, 2021

President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele - MARVIN RECINOS/AFP via Getty Images

El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele has been accused of falsely claiming to crack down on some of the world’s most violent street gangs while his government secretly gave them backhanders, including “mobile phones and prostitutes” for jailed gang leaders.

The accusation comes from the United States Treasury, which this week sanctioned two of Mr Bukele’s key allies for agreeing a “secret truce” with the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 gangs, whose rampant bloodshed has brought the Central American nation to its knees.

It activated the Magnitsky Act, used to target foreign officials involved in corruption and human rights abuses, against Osiris Luna, head of El Salvador’s prison system and deputy minister for public security, and Carlos Marroquin, who leads a welfare agency.

That means that any assets the pair have in the US will be frozen and US citizens will be barred from doing business with them. Luna was also accused of stealing government Covid-19 supplies.

Gang-related crimes are a big problem in El Salvador - 

MARVIN RECINOS/AFP via Getty Images

In a statement, Washington accused the pair of striking the clandestine deal with the violent criminals, in furtive meetings in El Salvador’s high security jails, to ensure that “incidents of gang violence and the number of confirmed homicides remained low. Over the course of these negotiations with Luna and Marroquin, gang leadership also agreed to provide political support to the Nuevas Ideas political party [of Bukele] in upcoming elections.”

The revelation comes as aides to Leftist former president Mauricio Funes are being tried for a similar pact with the gangs in 2012. Mr Bukele has tweeted that those functionaries are “worse than [trash]” and had “negotiated with the blood of our people.”

“This is very serious,” José Miguel Cruz, an El Salvadoran security expert at Florida International University, told The Telegraph. “The US is formally saying that the Bukele administration colluded with one of the most violent criminal organisations in the Western hemisphere to make security policy.”

Mr Bukele, 41, took office in 2019 after running as a populist independent promising to tackle corruption and crime with an iron fist.

Initially, his approach appeared wildly successful, with just 519 homicides in the nation of six million in the first five months of 2020, compared to 1,345 for the same period the previous year. But it now appears that the dramatic reduction was due to his government kowtowing to the criminals.

Mr Bukele responded furiously to the Biden administration’s allegations, tweeting: “How could they put out such an obvious lie without anyone questioning it? There are videos, yes, but of their friends doing that, not us.”

The news is hardly Mr Bukele’s first brush with controversy. He has previously sent soldiers into Congress, fired an attorney general who had launched corruption proceedings into his government, and made Bitcoin legal tender, taking a huge risk with the national economy.

Latin America’s first millennial head-of-government, Mr Bukele initially had a warm relationship with then US President Donald Trump, even visiting him in the White House.

But relations with the Biden administration are frosty. Earlier this year USAid, Washington’s international aid agency, announced it would re-channel its funding in El Salvador, many of whose citizens attempt to flee the poverty and violence of their homeland by migrating illegally to the US, towards NGOs rather than the Bukele administration.

EXPLAINER: Gang negotiations sensitive topic in El Salvador


El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele speaks to the press at Mexico's National Palace after meeting with the President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico City, March 12, 2019. The government of President Bukele secretly negotiated a truce with leaders of the country’s powerful street gangs, the U.S. Treasury announced Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021, cutting to the heart of one of Bukele’s most highly touted successes in office: a plunge in the country’s murder rate. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)More

CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
Thu, December 9, 2021

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Allegations from the United States government that President Nayib Bukele’s administration negotiated with El Salvador's powerful street gangs touched a sensitive topic. Previous administrations in El Salvador both from the left and right have done so and paid a political price. Prosecutions of some former officials are ongoing for past pacts. The U.S. Treasury said an investigation had revealed that officials with Bukele's government offered financial benefits to the gangs, as well as perks to their imprisoned leaders like prostitutes and cellphones, in exchange for lowering the homicide rate and political support in this year’s legislative elections. The U.S. government did not present evidence and Bukele has vehemently denied any deal with the gangs.

WHY ARE GANGS A SENSITIVE TOPIC IN EL SALVADOR?

The street gangs, which originated in the United States and took root in El Salvador when gang members were deported, are a force in Salvadoran society. They control neighborhoods and swaths of territory. There is no reliable figure on how many member the gangs have, but estimates are in the tens of thousands. They extort businesses, move drugs, murder, recruit children and restrict the free movement of people. Much of their leadership is imprisoned, but continues to run the criminal enterprises.


“The problem of the gangs is like a cancer,” said Carlos Carcach, the research coordinator at the Higher School of Economics and Business in San Salvador. “It is something so present in everything that occurs in the country that it is difficult, if not impossible, to eradicate it.”

IS NEGOTIATING DEALS WITH GANGS NEW IN EL SALVADOR?

No. Past governments have been accused of doing it for short-term political gain.

In 2012, officials with the government of then President Mauricio Funes negotiated “the truce” with the country's gangs that lowered the homicide rate, but has been blamed for allowing the gangs to strengthen and expand their territory. There were a variety of carrots offered to the gangs, including payments to members, but the most significant was moving imprisoned gang leaders from maximum security facilities to less secure prisons where they could continue running their criminal activities.

A number of former officials are being prosecuted for crimes related to that pact. Funes fled to Nicaragua where he received asylum. Bukele has been extremely critical of previous governments for making deals with the gangs.

The U.S. government’s allegations are not the first against Bukele’s government. Local news outlet El Faro reported last year that officials were secretly meeting with gang leaders to make a deal, which the president also denied at the time.

IF IT RESULTS IN FEWER MURDERS, WHY SHOULDN'T THE GOVERNMENT NEGOTIATE A TRUCE?

On the surface, the idea of the government making a deal with organized crime is distasteful. The government is responsible for citizens’ safety. At a deeper level, it’s an illustration of who really has power.

A drop in homicides is great, but must be accomplished with good public policies, security and effective investigations and prosecutions, said Leonor Arteaga, program director at the Due Process of Law Foundation, a regional rule of law organization based in Washington.

“What has happened is that the gangs are the ones imposing the conditions and the government the one that has accepted them,” she said. “Given that this reduction is in reality a pact, a negotiation, it’s the gangs who have control and who just as they’ve now reduced homicides, they could raise them again tomorrow.”

A problem is motivation, Arteaga said. “The government’s objective in entering these negotiations is not to obtain a benefit for the people ... but rather to obtain a political benefit,” she said.

WILL THIS HURT BUKELE'S POPULARITY?

Bukele is extremely popular. He rolled to victory over the traditional parties from the right and left in 2019 after corruption scandals largely discredited them. His New Ideas party romped to victory earlier this year in legislative elections that gave them control of the congress.

Bukele supporters laud him for the drop in murders, early acquisition of COVID-19 vaccines and government handouts of food and laptops for school children.

“I don’t see his popularity levels reducing dramatically,” Arteaga said. “The people are more interested in having some way to survive and get along to a certain point with the gangs.”