Figures released by the Minister of Justice and Security, Gustavo Villatoro, maintain that just over 64,512 gang members from the different criminal structures are behind bars, while 1.7 million dollars were seized. The number of members of these criminal groups, according to the authorities, is 76,000 members, although other projections place in at least 118,000.
According to the government, the siege of the gangs is closed even more with the deactivation of nearly 200 camps in rural areas and the reinforcement of controls on the country’s border. In this sense, reports indicate that the Guatemalan Army joined the local Armed Forces to combat criminal gangs that intend to use border blind spots to smuggle merchandise, firearms, drugs and other illicit acts.
Both armed groups carry out patrols in the bordering areas to prevent gang members from fleeing El Salvador from the operations and taking refuge in Guatemala to continue committing misdeeds, spokesmen said. According to Defense Minister René Francis Merino, these actions add to the work carried out in the Territorial Control Plan to reinforce security in border areas.
As part of the confrontation with crime, this Wednesday members of the Prosecutor’s Office and the National Civil Police (PNC) raided a house in this capital, in Santa Elena, Antiguo Cuscatlán, where they seized several packages identified as cocaine that were marketed by an international network of drug trafficking through the Mara Salvatrucha (MS). The attorney general, Rodolfo Delgado, explained that three drug packages were found in the patio of the house and one of those arrested, Luis Amaya, was part of an organization dedicated to international cocaine trafficking.
This case is related to a procedure carried out in October 2022 in the Santa Clara neighborhood in Cojutepeque, where Juan Alfredo Amaya Pineda hid 39 kilograms of cocaine valued at approximately $975,000 in his house. The fiscal investigation discovered that these people bought the drug in Panama and Costa Rica and transported it in vehicles to El Salvador, where it was distributed through the MS. ef/rgh/lb
