On October 12, 2025, a count In the Fraijanes 2 prison a leak was discovered: 20 leaders of Barrio 18 had disappeared. Six months later, the investigations traced their predominant route: they did not hide in the capital, but in departments of the country and in rural areas.
The search for the fugitives has involved risky decisions and detailed analysis, due to the danger for the National Civil Police (PNC) agents participating in the operations. The main objective has been to locate the hideouts and capture them, and one of the main strategies by which some have been located is the dissemination of the faces of the inmates who escaped from the prison.
The escape also gained media relevance due to the lack of security in said prison and the way it occurred: without shots or confrontations with the guards, which points to the possible complicity of guards through acts of corruption. The offer of a reward of Q150,000 for information that contributed to the arrest of the escaped prisoners also had an influence.
The clues
A source from the Anti-Extortion Prosecutor’s Office, of the Public Ministry (MP), details that the announcements about rewards have given positive results for the capture of at least three of the eight gang members located. One more was found dead in a home.
Before beginning the search, investigators analyzed the behavior of the escaped prisoners to determine where they might have been hiding. The members of Barrio 18 have codes and patterns known to the authorities. The Specialized Criminal Investigation Division of the PNC followed leads and began the first searches that same October. “People have participated. In the places to which they fled they—the fugitive gang members—were not known, becoming strange visitors to the residents. Investigators received alerts and surveillance operations were implemented to study the target,” explains the source from the Prosecutor’s Office.
Captures and danger
The common denominator in the operations in which the prisoners captured so far have been located is that weapons have been seized, a warning to investigators that the gang members are willing to face gun battles with their captors.
One day after the escape, on the main street of Buena Vista, Pueblo Nuevo Viñas, Santa Rosa, Byron Eduardo Fajardo Revolorio, alias Black Demon, was located. The place where he was was not part of the domain of the clique he directs, Solo para Locos, which operates in Villalobos, zone 12 of Villa Nueva. Police intelligence teams determined that this inmate was hiding in the house of his sister Vilma Jeanneth Fajardo Revolorio, who was detained along with Julio Geovany Farías Figueroa in that raid. The arrested prisoner does not have his left leg and uses crutches.
The wig
On October 18, at 6 a.m., PNC agents broke into a residential area in the urban area of Huehuetenango and entered a two-story house. Marlon Manolo Martínez Sincuir, alias the Monster or the Spectre, and Melcin Gabriel de León, alias Liro Strong, were hiding there. Makeup and a wig with curly black hair were found in one of the rooms. The agents obtained information that Martínez Sincuir sometimes left the condominium with his wig on and put makeup on his face to hide his tattoos; He has one on his forehead, with the word Eighteen – eighteen, in reference to the gang.
The Police mounted the operation before both gang members escaped, as they received a warning that they planned to flee to Mexico and that they were near the border. In that raid, Erlin Waldemar Pablo de León – brother of Melcin Gabriel -, Rudy Alexander Aguilar González, Josué Jeremías Marroquín Mateo, Gerson Alexander de León García, Katherine Nathaly Recinos Bernabé and Kary Dalila Recinos Bernabé were captured.
At a registration post that the Police set up on October 20, at kilometer 82, highway to La Democracia, Escuintla, another gang member was captured. The agents ordered the driver of a car to stop, and when asked to identify himself, he indicated that he did not have documents. The police used the MI3 device to verify the identity of the subject, through his fingerprints, and determined that it was Nicolás Xantes Sis, alias Brown.
Family support
A month later, on November 20, in Las Anonas, San José Pinula, Guatemala, Heber Jonathán Sinay Dionicio, alias Cartoon, was recaptured. He was hiding in the house of his cousin Violeta Marili Sinay Calderón, who was arrested, like Magda Elizabeth Camey Cordero. Both were hiding the gang member and, according to investigations, they are also members of Barrio 18. A group of investigators and police launched an operation in Los Amates, Izabal, where Milton Noel Najarro García, alias El Soberbio or El Dark, was apprehended. The Police suspect that he was being sheltered by relatives in the house where he was discovered on December 23. He was the sixth of those recaptured.
a deceased
In a tin house, on the morning of January 4, 2026, the discovery of a deceased person was reported. At the scene, the Police found beer cans and indications that he was accompanied by more people hours before. The victim was identified as Edwin Roberto González Ortega, alias Little Psyco, one of the leaders of the gang in the Carolingia neighborhood, zone 6 of Mixco. This was considered by the PNC as one of the gang members close to Aldo Dupie Ochoa, alias El Lobo, main leader of Barrio 18.
During the arrest of the seventh inmate located, on January 30, the agents participating in the operation were shot at at El Chan 1, Chinautla, Guatemala. The recaptured person is Carlos Agustín Reyes Popol, alias the Jocker or the Buffoon. Two rifles, four pistols, 300 ammunition, a bulletproof vest and four hoppers were seized at the scene. A minor who fought gunshots with the police to protect Reyes Popol was referred.
Shooting
Another armed confrontation between gang members and police occurred during the arrest of José Carmelo Sinay Ortiz, alias El Inquieto, on March 13, in San Juan Ostuncalco, Quetzaltenango. This was hidden in a house by other members of the gang. In the attack, two agents were injured and Sinay Ortiz received a gunshot wound to the stomach, for which he was transferred to the Western Regional Hospital, in Quetzaltenango. Last Tuesday it was reported that, due to health complications during the last month of hospitalization, a leg had to be amputated and he still remains in the hospital.
Vitiated prison
To understand this escape, the source from the Prosecutor’s Office details that, in February 2025, Barrio 18 began to extort companies in the country, after the ringleaders were transferred to the maximum security prison Renovación 1.
“In that prison there was an alliance between leaders of Barrio 18 and other inmates to make calls and continue extorting, because there were strict controls for gang members, and thus the threats to companies continued. In one of the cases they asked for Q2 million from a company. On the street it was members of Barrio 18 who demanded payments, with armed attacks,” he says.
Six months after the escape of these gang members, 11 have still not been located and the date of the escape is not certain.
“The gang members have a version and point out that the Police helped them escape, but that narrative is constructed with their lawyers and there is no authenticity, much less evidence,” says the source.
