Donald Trump’s administration is trying to reject the criminal charges against an senior MS -13 leader in order to deport him to El Salvador, according to the newly unconnected judicial archives – triggering accusations on the part of the criticisms and the legal team of the accused that the American president tries to make a favor for his salvadorien counterpart, who concluded a case in 2019.
According to files from the Ministry of Justice, the MS -13 figure in question, Vladimir Antonio Arevalo -Chavez, has an intimate knowledge of this secret pact, who – finally to collapse – involved President Salvadoran Nayib Bukele yielding money and territory to the gang, who in return promised to reduce the violence on his side and provide Bukele’s party.
The Trump administration attempts to expel Arevalo-Chavez are part of its own agreement with Bukele to allow the United States to incarcerate immigrants in a maximum security salvador prison. CNN reported in April that the Bukele government had specifically asked that nine senior MS-13 leaders be brought back to the United States Salvador.
Trump criticisms who defend the rights of Arevalo-Chavez see the decision to deport him as a means of preventing him from testifying to an American court, or becoming a cooperator of the federal government, to limit disclosure of Bukele as much as possible with the gang.
Arevalo-Chavez is a member of the “Ranfla Nacional”, which is considered a board of directors of the administrators for the Gang MS-13. The federal accusations pending against him in New York include racketeering, terrorism and conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism.
A file from the US Ministry of Justice – dated April 1 but not sealed before Thursday – said that federal prosecutors wanted to reject the accusations against Arevalo -Chavez for “sensitive and important foreign policy considerations”.
The prosecutors added that “geopolitical and national concerns of the United States” and said that allowing “the defendant’s pursuit is first of all in Salvador” was also a factor.
Arevalo-Chavez is still in the United States, his lawyers requesting more information on the reasons for rejection of the accusations and the expected expulsion.
The judge ruled in April so as not to move it anywhere, preventing that it is placed in the care of immigration and the application of the United States (ICE) customs, which would lead to his expulsion.
“The” geopolitical and national security concerns “seem to be an effort of the government to support an agreement ” with El Salvador to help Bukele remove the truth about a secret negotiation that he had with the leaders of MS-13 in return from our government by using prisons from El Salvador,” said Arevalo-Chavez lawyers on Thursday. Built to accommodate alleged gang members.
The American prosecutor’s office for the federal district of eastern New York, where Arevalo-Chavez is prosecuted, refused to comment on Friday when asked by the Guardian. The Arevalo-Chavez lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
In mid-March, the United States Ministry of Justice discreetly rejected the accusations against another member of Ranfla Nacional and expelled it to El Salvador to be detained in Cecot, an acronym whose full name in Spanish means “the center of confinement of terrorism”. This other leader of Ranfla, Cesar Humberto López-Larios, faced similar charges in New York and would also have had an overview of the agreement that Bukele previously concluded with the gang.
“It is a collusion between two governments, the United States and Salvador, to cover a gang pact by abandoning the accusations of known gangsters in order to disappear them before being able to testify,” Police Science Michael Ahn Paarlberg said at Virginia Commonwealth University. “It’s a criminal plot between Trump and Bukele administrations.
“The irony is both to claim to be difficult to scream.”
According to an indictment from the Ministry of Justice in 2019, the management of the MS-13 forged a pact with senior officials of the Bukele administration. El Faro, a Salvadoran press organization, reported on the secret meetings during which Bukele officials would enter the prisons in Salvador to negotiate directly with Ranfla leaders.
As part of the agreement, MS-13 would receive certain concessions related to money and land while agreeing to reduce the amount of the violence they have inflicted in Salvador. In addition, some best leaders of the MS -13 have been released from prison – and the gang promised to take advantage of its networks to support the Bukele political party in the 2021 legislative elections, according to the prosecutors.
The pact allegedly collapsed in 2022, which led Bukele to engage in a massive offensive against the country’s gangs. Critics say that the so -called exception repression has led to a trampling of regular procedure and human rights in the Nation of Central America – while allowing Bukele to consolidate power more.
For years, Bukele has tried to delete any proof of its links with MS-13 by trying to take over the leaders of Ranfla or ignoring the requests for American extradition.
US federal organizations for the application of laws have long continued MS-13 criminal networks. In 2020 and 2022, two distinct federal accusation acts in New York accusing 27 gang leaders were delivered and not sealed.
In 2021, the US Treasury Department sanctioned two senior Bukele officials for their alleged “corruption”, claiming that they were engaged in “secret negotiations between government officials and the criminal organization” in order to obtain the secret pact with MS-13. The Treasury Department also allegedly alleged that the administration of Bukele in 2020 had provided financial incentives to MS-13 to reduce the violence of the gangs in exchange for “political support”.
Arevalo-Chavez, one of the co-accused of the 2022 indictment, had “participated in negotiations with the Salvador government on behalf of MS-13,” said the Ministry of Justice, then controlled by the presidential administration of Joe Biden. Arevalo-Chavez left El Salvador and went to Mexico, where he helped direct gang operations.
The Mexican government arrested Arevalo-Chavez in February 2023 and quickly transferred it to the United States, where the FBI and internal security surveys (HSI) took care. He is in detention in a federal detention center while his case takes place.
Relations between El Salvador and the United States have improved since Trump took office. In 2021, the tensions between Biden officials and the Bukele government broke out when, despite a request for an international arrest warrant and extradition, Salvado officials quietly released Ranfla Nacional prison, Elmer Canales, Rivera. American prosecutors allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly escorted out of prison by a high -level Bukele official, given a firearm and led to the Guatemalan border for his escape.
The Bukele administration then tried to resume Canales-Rivera. According to El Faro reports, the Bukele government discussed a plan to pay a Mexican cartel to find Canales-Rivera and return it to Salvador. The Mexican government found him first, arrested him and expelled him to the United States in November 2023.
Eight Nacional leaders of Ranfla remained in police custody after López-Larios One was expelled in March. Two of them pleaded guilty earlier this year.
