Secret Bukele Deal Lies Behind Trump’s El Salvador Deportations
El-Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele
by José Olivares and Ryan Grim
U.S. President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele have long presented themselves as crusaders of justice battling the scourge of transnational criminal gangs. Earlier this year, the Trump administration declared MS-13—a violent Salvadoran gang that originated in the U.S.—and other Latin American criminal groups to be “terrorist” organizations.
The narrative hit a cinematic apogee earlier this month when Trump swept up a klatch of Venezuelans he said were hardened gangsters, paired them up with some alleged members of MS-13 and sent them down south to be detained in Bukele’s “terrorism” prison.
The truth turns out to be much messier. Not only did Trump deport Venezuelans who were likely completely innocent, but also a specific MS-13 member who is emblematic of alleged corruption at the highest ranks of the Salvadoran government: a man called “Greñas.”
The importance of Greñas, whose legal name is Cesar Humberto Lopez-Larios, lies in what he knows. According to a federal indictment, as a leader of MS-13, Greñas may have been involved in secret negotiations between the gang and Bukele’s government, aimed at lowering gang violence in exchange for political support. Bukele denies the negotiations ever took place, but has long sought to get ahold of high-ranking members of MS-13 who participated, working to keep such figures out of the hands of the United States before they can have their day in open court. The Bukele government has also resisted extraditing a number of MS-13 leaders requested by the U.S.
Had Greñas’s case gone forward in the U.S., the sordid links between Bukele and the gang he is famous for warring against may have been aired publicly. Instead, federal charges were dismissed four days before his expulsion due to “sensitive and important foreign policy considerations,” according to a recently unsealed Justice Department document. The Justice Department initially requested the document be sealed because its release “could cause harm to the government’s relationship” with El Salvador.
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Source: Drop Site News