The agreement between the president of the United States and Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador, is undermining an American federal investigation into the gang that began years ago, according to people familiar with the investigation.
When Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador, agreed at the beginning of the year to imprison deported people from the United States, had a specific request for the government of President Donald Trump: the return of the main leaders of the MS-13 in US custody.
In recent months, a team of reporters of The New York Times has investigated how his return would affect the promise of President Trump to dismantle the transnational gang and why Bukele would want the gang leaders to return to his country.
Bukele could benefit from the release of the leaders of the MS-13 in American custody
American and Salvadoran officials have said that MS-13 leaders are being returned to El Salvador to face Salvadoran justice.
But the Times He discovered that American prosecutors have accumulated substantial evidence of a corrupt pact between the Government of El Salvador and some high-ranking leaders of the MS-13, who agreed to reduce violence and politically reinforce Bukele in exchange for money and benefits in jail. The researchers had even begun to investigate Bukele himself.
Some of those who participated in federal research are worried that Bukele wants the gang leaders to return to prevent harmful information about their government.
The return of the main leaders of the MS-13 could hinder US investigation.
The investigation began in Trump’s first government, and was headed by an inter -institutional group called Vulcan Joint Task Force.
But now, two important cases against some of the highest rank leaders of the gang, the result of that effort, could be seriously damaged, and other defendants could be less likely to cooperate or testify in court, according to multiple people with knowledge of the initiative.
Prosecutors try to discreetly withdraw charges against leaders
After working for years to put high-ranking leaders of the MS-13, federal prosecutors are now discreetly withdrawing the charges against them.
One of those leaders, César López Larios, was transferred by plane to El Salvador in March, along with other migrants, and sent to a maximum security prison. López had been in American custody for less than a year and was waiting to be prosecuted for non -drugged conspiracy positions.
Long Island prosecutors now intend to withdraw the charges against Vladimir Arévalo Chávez, who was accused along with 12 other gang leaders in February 2023 of narcoterrorism, murder and corruption.
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Trump’s first government received a warning on a secret pact between the Bukele government and the MS-13 since August 2020, when a senior Salvadoran official appeared at the US embassy in San Salvador to share information, according to the Times
The following year, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on that same official already a high-ranking official of Bukele after determining that they had offered the leaders of the MS-13 money, cell phones and prostitutes in jail in exchange for their help to reduce the homicide rate and ensure votes.
Trump’s agreement with Bukele goes against his promise to ‘eradicate’ to MS-13
Trump has been promising to dismantle the gang for a long time, and in a speech pronounced at the beginning of his first mandate, he promised to “dismantle, tithe and eradicate” to the MS-13.
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When he returned to the White House this year, he renewed that promise. Earlier this year, the United States General Treasury, PAM Bondi, issued an internal memorandum in which he asked for the “total elimination” of the gang. But the agreement with Bukele now undermines one of Trump’s most significant initiatives to pursue the MS-13.