Who is ‘Crook’, the leader of MS-13 who will be tried for terrorism in the US (and why he was key in the pact with Bukele)

Elmer Canales Rivera, founding leader of the violent Salvadoran gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13)will be tried in a New York court, USA, for terrorism, after being extradited from Mexico, the Department of Justice announced on Wednesday. The independent press The Saviorlike the investigative portal El Faro, has pointed out this criminal, alias the ‘Hollywood Crook’, as being a key person in the alleged negotiations between the gang and the president’s government. Nayib Bukele to reduce homicides in exchange for prison benefits, something that the regime has always denied.

He ‘Hollywood Crook’47, will be tried for crimes of conspiracy to provide and conceal material support to terrorists, conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism that transcend national borders, conspiracy to finance terrorism and conspiracy to narcoterrorismaccording to a statement from the Department of Justice.

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All of these crimes are related to his direction of the organization’s criminal activities. MS-13 in the United States, El Salvador, Mexico and other places during the last two decades, reported the EFE agency.

It is worth remembering that in December 2020, Rivera Canals was charged with the aforementioned crimes along with 13 other ringleaders MS-13. For now he is the only one who is in a United States prison.

“Rivera Canales is responsible for the gang’s decades-long efforts to terrorize communities, attack law enforcement and sow violence in the United States. and abroad,” the Secretary of Justice said in the statement, Merrick B. Garland.

“The arrest of this senior leader and veteran of the MS-13 should serve as a warning to other MS-13 leaders that The Department of Justice will hold them responsible for their crimes”he added.

According to the US indictment, the leadership group of the Mara Salvatrucha It consists of the National Ranfla, Ranfla in the streets and Ranfla in the prisons. He Hollywood Crook and his co-defendants They held important positions in the organization’s operations inside and outside the United States.

But how Elmer Canales Rivera ended up in the United States? He ‘Hollywood Crook‘was imprisoned in The savedr until 2021. After his release he moved to Guatemala and then entered Mexico. On November 8, it was surprisingly reported that United States agents had captured him in Mexico and taken him to the United States. It has not been detailed where he was detained and under what mechanism he arrived in the United States.

Who is the ‘Hollywood Crook’?

Elmer Canales Rivera is founding member of the “Twelve Apostles of the Devil”the group that founded MS-13 in Los Angeles. He is a member of the National Ranfla.

In accordance with Insight Crime, originally the Ranfla Historically it had 12 members, hence the aforementioned denomination. He Devil is a reference to Borromeo Enrique Henriquezaka the ‘Hollywood Devil‘, top leader of the MS-13.

crook is considered by many as second in command of MS-13.

He was arrested for the first time on June 12, 2000, when he was 24 years old, for participating with two former police officers in the kidnapping of a man in the so-called Côte d’Azur caseindicates The lighthouse.

His criminal record includes kidnapping, homicides, trafficking of prohibited objects inside prisons and extortion, in addition to being part of the highest national leadership of his gang, considered by the United States Government a transnational terrorist organization.

In 2002, while he was held in the prison of Appearancesfounded, together with Borromeo Enrique Henríquez Solórzanoalias ‘little devil from Hollywood‘, and other criminals, the first prison leadership of the gang called Ranflawhich in subsequent years would be consolidated as the national management body of the Mara Salvatruchawhich has extortion as the main means of financing.

The Ranfla It is the one that makes all the important decisions of the Mara Salvatruchafrom the amounts of extortion to the civilian population, the punishments for those considered traitors and what pacts to establish with other criminal groups, according to BBC World.

Now that he is imprisoned in the United States, Hollywood’s Crook will be the first of 14 New York defendants to face justice.

Two other criminals requested for extradition are free. The rest would be in prisons The Savior.

Why was the ‘Hollywood Crook’ free?

The lighthouse reported that the ‘Hollywood Crook‘He was in prison since 2000, but He was secretly and illegally released by the government of President Bukele in November 2021.as part of the pact that was in force at that time between the Salvadoran authorities, the Mara Salvatrucha and the two factions of Barrio 18, the other powerful gang in El Salvador and enemy of the MS-13.

That pact consisted, according to El Faro, that the gang members had to reduce the homicides they perpetrated in exchange for prison benefits for their leaders.

Elmer Canales Rivera He had a final sentence of 40 years in prisonwhich was handed down in 2020 for two homicides.

While I was in jail, The United States asked El Salvador for his extraditionto be tried for terrorism.

This extradition request was formally presented on July 26, 2021, four months before the Government of Bukele allowed him to escape, El Faro notes.

According to an investigation by El Faro published in July 2022, the last known whereabouts of the gang leader was Mexico. He had arrived in that country after the Salvadoran authorities released him and transferred him to Guatemalain the company of his partner at the time, Yesi Chávez, who had visited him in the Ciudad Barrios prison since 2009.

El Faro investigations determined that Elmer Canales He was released by the Bukele Government at the end of November 2021 and that two officials actively collaborated in his escape: the Vice Minister of Security and Justice, Osiris Luna, who is also general director of Penal Centers; and also Carlos Marroquín, director of the Social Fabric Reconstruction Unit, who was the official liaison between the Government and the gangs in the negotiations they held before the arrival of Bukele to power in June 2019 until at least March 2022, when the emergency regime was decreed that is still in force in The Savior.

Once free, the crook lived for a time in the capital of The Savior in a luxurious apartment in the Escalón neighborhood, where the monthly rent costs 2,000 dollars. He then went to Guatemala and later to Mexico.

In 2010, says El Faro, Yesi Chavez was accused alongside him Hollywood Crook of the crimes of kidnapping and aggravated homicide, but after more than four years in prison she was acquitted.

El Faro explained that he was able to reconstruct the exit from the country of Rivera Canals thanks to photographs that were published by Yesi Chávez on her social networks.

And what happened to the United States extradition request? In January 2022, the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) of El Salvador acknowledged receipt of a diplomatic note sent by the US Embassy. In the acknowledgment of receipt, the CSJ wrote: “Through [la nota diplomática] report that they have received information that the requested person was released from confinement despite the existence of a pending extradition request and a red notice Interpol, so they request that the United States Embassy be provided with an update on the current location of Canales Rivera.” Nothing more was said about the case. El Faro maintained that it does not know the response that the court magistrates sent to the Embassy or if there was any response.

The historical leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha