During a press conference this June 15, Marco Antonio Villeda, Minister of the Interior, assured that the Joint Task Force Vulcana specialized unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), left Guatemala at the end of 2025 due to the lack of collaboration of the Public Ministry (MP) during the administration of Maria Consuelo Porras.
According to the official, the US force had arrived in the country to support the location and recapture of the 20 gang members from Barrio 18 who escaped from the Fraijanes 2 prison; However, the agents who made up the team did not find support from the MP authorities.
The Vulcano Force team arrived in Guatemala after Villeda requested support to locate the leaders of Barrio 18 who had escaped from prison.
Villeda explained that the Vulcano Force was made up of FBI agents and US prosecutors and arrived in Guatemala in November 2025 and withdrew a month later, because it did not find support for the operations, which required judicial resolutions that had to be processed through the Public Ministry.
Lack of support from the MP
“The problem arose because the prosecutors who had been accompanying this task force approached the Public Ministry to request the collaboration of this entity to improve the location and capture of these criminals; however, they found that the Public Ministry, at that time, was apparently not very interested in giving them this support through the prosecutors and for that reason they made the decision to leave the country and wait for better times to generate better coordination,” he said.
He added that part of those actions was to request search warrants, but the MP, led by Porras, did not support the FBI team.
Villeda said that the members of the Vulcano Force located several of the fugitive inmates from Fraijanes 2 between November and December of last year.
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“With the people who came from the FBI’s Vulcan Force, there was coordination that helped us achieve certain results. Remember that there were some recaptures,” he indicated.
Of the 20 gang members who escaped from Fraijanes 2, one was murdered, eight have been recaptured and 11 remain at large.
“We still need to capture 11 more who are still on the streets and it is urgent to recapture them and send them back to prison,” said Villeda.
Vulcano Force will return in July
He reported that during a recent visit to the United States he met with the director of the Vulcano Force and the new attorney general, who offered support for Guatemalan prosecutors to work in coordination with US investigators.
“The attorney general—Gabriel García Luna—has let them know that there is a new administration and that there is every will on the part of the Public Ministry for Guatemalan prosecutors to coordinate with FBI prosecutors and recaptures can be improved and expedited,” he explained.
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He added that the director of the Vulcano Force promised to send a specialized team to Guatemala again next July.
“The director of the Vulcano Group of the FBI has committed to sending this task force again in the month of July, understanding that now there will be all this collaboration on the part of the Public Ministry,” he said.