MS13 Members Sent to Mexico "to Make the Gang Grow More"

Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Sin Embargo y NYT y EFE

Mara Salvatrucha tried to establish alliances with cartels in Mexico, a witness reveals in the mass trial of more than 400 members of the Maras which resumed on Tuesday.

"Noah" said that Maras were sent to Guatemala and Mexico "to make the gang grow more" and establish contact with drug trafficking organizations.

El Salvador on Tuesday began a mass trial in an "Anti Mafia " court of over 400 alleged gang members, including 17 purported leaders of the feared transnational crime group Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13  on charges of homicide, terrorist organizations, money laundering and arms trafficking.


Sixteen suspects were in court while the rest watched via videoconference from prisons. Nearly 100 defense lawyers are on the case, which could last until November given the volume of witnesses and evidence.

Prosecutors say they took depositions from 150 people, though only 34 are expected to testify. The star witness is a person who apparently can identify by name and nickname each one of the alleged gangsters. The defendants were captured under the so-called "Operation Cuscatlán" in February 2018, one of the largest in recent years, and in which goods for more than 1.8 million dollars were seized.

Among the leaders facing the trial since Monday are Dionisio Umanzor, Pedro Rivas and Borromeo Henríquez, considered as part of the maximum leadership structure of the MS13.

Most of the suspects were arrested in 2018 when more than 1,500 special forces agents raided restaurants, bars, beauty parlors, beer halls, ranches and used car dealerships, seizing cash, bank accounts, vehicles and properties.

Salvadoran gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) sought to establish alliances with the drug cartels of Mexico and Guatemala to smuggle banned narcotics and weapons, a witness said Thursday in a trial facing 426 alleged gang members and front men .

According to the Judicial Branch, the witness identified only as "Noah" said that gang members were sent to Guatemala and Mexico "to make the gang grow more" and establish contact with drug trafficking.

He added that the Salvadoran gang trafficked between 200 and 400 kilograms of marijuana, valued at 

up to $500 per kilogram. On the other hand, he pointed out that the structure received 9 kilograms of cocaine from Honduras for $112,500 dollars.

This same witness linked Wednesday the current mayor of the Salvadoran capital, Ernesto Muyshondt, with the purchase of votes from the gangs in the 2015 municipal and legislative elections.

"Noah," according to the judicial body, said the right-wing politician of the Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena) gave him $ 69,000 "in exchange for votes."

The witness also noted that the gang received money from the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) for the 2014 elections in which former President Salvador Sánchez Cerén prevailed.

This is the second time that Arena and FMLN are singled out in a trial to hand over money to the "Maras" to receive votes.

In August 2017, a witness identified only as “Nalo de Las Palmas” declared, during a trial against the operators of a controversial truce between the gangs between 2012 and 2014, that the two main political parties of El Salvador paid $350,000 dollars .

El Salvador is considered one of the most violent countries in the world for homicide rates per 100,000 inhabitants between 103 and 50.3 registered between 2015 and 2018, indexes attributed mainly to MS13, Barrio 18 and other minority gangs.

Investigations by the Prosecutor's Office indicate that a group of the gang's alleged frontmen received money from said structure to launder it through small businesses.

70% of the profits generated by all businesses that received illicit funds were for the gang and 30% were left to the owners of the businesses.

The operation that gave rise to this process was recorded after the so-called "Jaque" of 2016, which was the first direct hit to the finances of the MS13 with the dismantling of a network that managed the assets of the gang.

According to the United States Department of Justice, the MS13 has weakened since 2017, when the U.S. Government and the Northern Triangle of Central America (El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala) increased their police and judicial coordination to combat that group.

However, the strongest operations against this criminal structure began in 2016.

El Salvador is besieged by MS13, which the United States seeks to eradicate, Barrio 18 and other minority gangs that have more than 600 groups across the country and to which the Government attributes most of the crimes that occurred in its territory.