A recurring problem with authoritarian governments and dictatorships is that when the interests of the ruler clash with the public interest, those of the dictator always prevail.
When it comes to gangs, Nayib Bukele has made two very different agreements that clash head-on with national interests in El Salvador.
The first was made directly with gang leaders. Bukele made a deal with them to obtain personal political benefits: to secure votes in communities controlled by criminals and reduce the homicide rate to give the appearance of security. In exchange, he gave them money and privileges, denied their extradition to the United States, and secretly released some of the most dangerous leaders.
The second is the agreement he made with the Trump administration. It is an opaque pact, which was announced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio: El Salvador offered to receive and hold undocumented migrants and criminals from any country in the world at the CECOT. “An extraordinary gesture never before offered by any country,” said Secretary Rubio.
No written version of the agreement is known, but little by little we are discovering its conditions and its transactional nature — to borrow the language of Trump watchers.
What we know can be summarized as follows: El Salvador receives “undesirables” (undocumented migrants; people classified as criminals without having faced trial; and any other person, regardless of nationality, that the United States decides to expel) in exchange for a payment for each one and the deportation to El Salvador of MS-13 leaders detained in New York, awaiting trial. The latter, revealed the Salvadoran ambassador in Washington, was demanded by Bukele as a “point of honor.”
A Mafia Regime in El Salvador
It is as if Mexico agreed to receive deportees in exchange for the United States sending El Chapo, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, and other drug lords detained there; or if Honduras did the same in exchange for the extradition of Los Cachiros and Juan Orlando Hernández. Not only because they are considered top priority criminals for the United States (drug traffickers and terrorists), but also because agents from that country have devoted a great deal of time and resources to bringing them to justice.
The nine gang members imprisoned in New York were pursued for several years by a special task force, created during Trump's first term, called Vulcan. Some of them were captured in the United States or Mexico. Others, such as Élmer Canales Rivera, alias “Crook,” were imprisoned in El Salvador but were illegally released by Bukele despite facing decades of sentences for terrible crimes. (Crook was captured in Chiapas by Mexican authorities and sent to the United States).
The formal indictment in New York against the gang members includes the pact with the Salvadoran government, and it is expected that, if the hearings finally take place, the defendants will provide information about the pact.
Few things could cause more damage to Bukele's international image than MS-13 leaders describing their partnership with him in the United States. That is why he needs to prevent them from remaining in the United States at all costs.
He already tried to hire a drug cartel in Mexico to kidnap Crook and bring him to El Salvador before he was located by U.S. authorities. Now he is trying to get the Trump administration to send them all on a direct flight to CECOT.
Last July, CNN published an email exchange between a brother of Nayib Bukele and Marco Rubio’s chief of staff. Ibrajim Bukele, who holds no official position, was negotiating the agreement with the Trump administration on behalf of the Salvadoran government. As part of the offer, he included an attractive discount for each deportee in exchange for the gang members. “Upon all nine being returned, [El Salvador] will provide [U.S. government] a 50% discount for Year 2, if necessary, of the original TdAs,” said the email sent by Ibrajim Bukele, referring to the 238 deported Venezuelan migrants, alleged to be members of the Tren de Aragua, but who were never prosecuted.
It is worth noting the coldness with which Bukele’s brother trades in human beings as if they were merchandise. It does not matter who these people arriving on the planes are. It does not matter if they are migrants, like the hundreds of thousands of undocumented Salvadorans in the United States who are currently hiding from immigration police. It does not matter who the deportees are. All aboard to CECOT. Fifty percent off. What matters is the return of the nine criminals, nine witnesses to his brother’s pact with the gangs. Nayib Bukele’s nine partners.
A State Department official revealed to CNN that the deportations of MS-13 leaders were “a priority for Bukele, and the Trump administration accepted the deal.”
The first to return was César Antonio López Larios, alias Greñas, deported after the U.S. Department of Justice formally requested that the judge dismiss the charges against him, arguing “geopolitical interests.”
How to Pillage the State
There is already a second request from the Justice Department to dismiss the charges against another leader, and Bukele hopes that all nine will return to El Salvador before they begin to testify in the New York court.
It is clear that the interests of the Bukele family are opposed to the public interest, both of Salvadorans and U.S. Americans, which is to know the secret agreements that a ruler has made with criminal organizations considered terrorists in both countries.
In El Salvador, which is already living under a dictatorship, there is not much room for maneuver to demand that the public interest prevail over the political urgencies of a leader who has made a pact with the mafia. But in the United States, where the leaders of MS-13 are in custody, they also have the right to know why the Trump administration is prioritizing Bukele’s criminal interests over the prosecution of gang leaders, which is considered a priority for U.S. security. These are gang members wanted for extradition by the United States and whom Bukele himself illegally released. That agreement, which Secretary Rubio sealed in San Salvador, aims to save a criminal: Nayib Bukele.