Trump, Bukele and MS-13: uncovering the secrets of a controversial deal

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During their meeting at the White House, Trump praised his guest as 'one hell of a president.' He shook Bukele's hand, saying, 'We appreciate working with you because you want to stop crime and so do we.'
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A long-running U.S. investigation of MS-13 has uncovered evidence at odds with Bukele's reputation as a crime fighter. The inquiry, which began as an effort to dismantle the gang's leadership, expanded to focus on whether the Bukele government cut a secret deal with MS-13 in the early years of his presidency.
New reporting on that investigation by ProPublica shows that senior officials in Bukele's government repeatedly impeded the work of a U.S. task force as it pursued evidence of possible wrongdoing by the Salvadoran president and his inner circle.
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Bukele's allies secretly blocked extraditions of gang leaders whom U.S. agents viewed as potential witnesses to the negotiations and persecuted Salvadoran law enforcement officials who helped the task force, according to exclusive interviews with current and former U.S. and Salvadoran officials, newly obtained internal documents and court records from both countries.
In a previously unreported development, federal agents came to suspect that Bukele and members of his inner circle had diverted U.S. aid funds to the gang as part of the alleged deal to provide it with money and power in exchange for votes and reduced homicide rates. In 2021, agents drew up a request to review U.S. bank accounts held by Salvadoran political figures to look for evidence of money laundering related to the suspected diversion of U.S. funds. The list of names assembled by the agents included Bukele, senior officials and their relatives, according to documents viewed by ProPublica.
'Information obtained through investigation has revealed that the individuals contained within this submission are heavily engaged with MS-13 and are laundering funds from illicit business where MS-13 are involved,' the agents wrote. The people on the list 'are also believed to have been funding MS-13 to support political campaigns and MS-13 have received political funds.'
The outcome of the request is not known, but its existence shows that the U.S. investigation had widened to examine suspected corruption at high levels of the Bukele government.
The investigation was led by Joint Task Force Vulcan, a multiagency law enforcement team created at Trump's request in 2019. Agents found evidence that the Bukele government tried to cover up the pact by preventing the extraditions of gang leaders who faced U.S. charges that include ordering the murders of U.S. citizens and plotting to assassinate an FBI agent.
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In addition, U.S. officials helped at least eight of their counterparts in Salvadoran law enforcement flee the country and resettle in the United States or elsewhere because they feared retaliation by their own government, current and former U.S. officials said.
It has been clear from the beginning what Trump wants from El Salvador: an ally who would accept, and even imprison, deportees. Less clear has been what Bukele might want from the United States. In striking the deal with the Salvadoran president, Trump has effectively undercut the Vulcan investigation and shielded Bukele from further scrutiny, current and former U.S. officials said.
Veterans of the Vulcan team are 'concerned that all their work, the millions of dollars that were spent, going all over the United States, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, that it will be weakened for political reasons,' said a U.S. official familiar with the investigation.
The task force worked closely with the Salvadoran attorney general's office, whose prosecutors shared evidence from their own investigation of the gang negotiations and suspected graft in the Bukele government, according to current and former U.S. and Salvadoran officials.
'There was good information on corruption between the gang and the Bukele administration,' Christopher Musto, a former senior official at Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI, who worked on Vulcan, said about the Salvadoran investigation. 'It was a great case.'
In May 2021, Bukele's legislative majority in Congress ousted the attorney general and justices of the Supreme Court, which oversees extradition requests. Within seven months, newly installed justices reversed or halted six requests for senior gang leaders wanted in the U.S., according to interviews and documents.
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'Bukele's people were coming to the Supreme Court and saying under no circumstances are we extraditing the MS-13 leaders,' said the U.S. official familiar with the investigation. ''Delay, interfere, undermine, do what you have to do.''
Senior Bukele officials helped an MS-13 leader with a pending extradition order escape from prison, according to court records, U.S. officials and Salvadoran news reports. At least three other top gang leaders were released from Salvadoran custody after the U.S. filed extradition requests for them, according to Justice Department documents.
The Justice Department declined to comment in response to questions sent by ProPublica. The State Department referred questions to the Justice Department.
A White House spokesperson did not respond to detailed questions.
'President Trump is committed to keeping his promises to the American people and removing dangerous criminals and terrorist illegals who pose a threat to the American public,' said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson. 'We are grateful for President Bukele's partnership.'
Bukele, the Salvadoran Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Salvadoran Supreme Court did not respond to lists of questions. Bukele has repeatedly denied making any agreement with MS-13. The Trump administration's deportation of MS-13 members to El Salvador,
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'This will help us finalize intelligence gathering and go after the last remnants of MS-13, including its former and new members, money, weapons, drugs, hideouts, collaborators, and sponsors,' the post said.
'Just Fear'
Bukele was elected president of El Salvador in February 2019, promising to fight the country's ingrained political corruption and pervasive gang violence, which he called 'one of the greatest challenges' facing the nation.
During his first term, Trump also made MS-13 a high-profile foe, calling it 'probably the meanest, worst gang in the world.' In August 2019, Attorney General William P. Barr created the Vulcan task force, teaming federal prosecutors with agents of the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies. The goal: Eradicate MS-13.
For decades, MS-13 has bedeviled law enforcement in the Americas with its vast reach, extreme violence and complex culture. The initials stand for 'Mara Salvatrucha.' 'Mara' means a swarm, while 'salvatrucha' has been said to refer to a clever Salvadoran, according to interviews and an
MS-13 emerged in the 1980s in Los Angeles among Salvadoran youths whose families had fled a bloody civil war. The gang expanded throughout the diaspora and, as the U.S. deported planeloads of ex-convicts starting in the 1990s, took root in El Salvador. Although most of the leaders were serving sentences in El Salvador, a jailhouse council of 14 bosses, known as the 'Ranfla,' used cellphones to micromanage criminal activities in U.S. cities thousands of miles away.
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The gang developed a reputation for torturing, brutalizing and dismembering its victims. Barr has called it 'a death cult' in which violence is more important than riches.
'It was like a very violent mom-and-pop operation where the cousins and second cousins all want to be a part of it,' said Carlos Ortiz, who served as the HSI attaché in El Salvador from 2018 to 2024. 'Minimal money, compared to others. Even though it's an organization, a lot of it is just fear. Fear of the high-ranking bosses among the rest of the gang, that's what drives it.'
Trained with military weapons, MS-13 warred with security forces in El Salvador, took over neighborhoods and generated one of the world's worst homicide rates, driving an exodus of immigrants reminiscent of the 1980s. The Salvadoran Supreme Court designated the gang as a terrorist organization in 2015.
The Vulcan task force had about 30 members, including prosecutors, agents and analysts. Its director, John J. Durham, was a federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York who had spent a decade pursuing MS-13 cliques on Long Island. Members of the task force worked from bases around the country and traveled to Mexico and Central America.
One of the founding investigators, Newark FBI agent Daniel Brunner, spoke fluent Spanish and had worked gangs for seven years. He became a roving specialist providing expertise, communications intelligence and court transcripts, sometimes in person and sometimes from a distance.
'Our idea was that Vulcan was like a SEAL Team 6, going in to help the different districts build cases,' Brunner, who is now retired, said in an interview.
Vulcan built on the longtime U.S. presence and extensive influence in El Salvador, where the embassy has long funded and trained law enforcement agencies. FBI agents and others were embedded as advisers in police anti-gang and homicide units and worked with prosecution teams led by Attorney General Raúl Melara.
The U.S. task force modeled its strategy on the ones used against Mexican cartels and Colombian narcoguerrillas: Break the power of the MS-13 bosses by extraditing them to face trial and prison in the United States.
On Jan. 14, 2021, six days before the end of the Trump administration, Durham and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray joined acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen when
Prosecutors charged the 14 members of the leadership council with major crimes including conspiracy to support and finance narcoterrorism. For more than two decades, the Ranfla ran a criminal network in the United States, Mexico and Central America that sanctioned the murders of Americans and trafficked drugs and arms, the indictment alleged.
The indictment contained a stunning charge: MS-13 bosses had taken the extraordinary step of giving an order, or 'green light,' to assassinate an FBI agent working with local investigators in El Salvador. Embassy officials learned of the threat and evacuated the agent, according to interviews.
It is highly unusual for Latin American criminal groups to target a U.S. agent — they have learned that it invites an overwhelming law enforcement response. The assassination plot was a sign that the U.S. crackdown had rattled the gang chiefs, current and former officials said.
Vulcan on the Hunt
In conversations with American officials as president-elect, Bukele promised cooperation and welcomed their support against gangs and graft, even in his own Nuevas Ideas party, according to current and former U.S. officials.
At a
Already, though, there had been
For more than a decade, MS-13's control of the streets had made it a political force. It could deliver votes, ignite mayhem or impose order. A series of politicians had held talks with gang leaders to seek electoral support and reductions in violence in return for improved prison conditions and perks such as prostitutes and big-screen televisions.
The Bukele government adopted a more sophisticated bargaining strategy, according to current and former U.S. and Salvadoran officials. During secret meetings in prisons and other sites, the president's emissaries offered MS-13 leaders political power and financial incentives if they lowered the homicide rate and marshaled support for the Nuevas Ideas party, according to current and former U.S. and Salvadoran officials and court documents.
The chief negotiator was Carlos Marroquín, a former rap artist and confidant of the president. Bukele had appointed him the director of a new Justice Ministry program known as 'Reconstruction of the Social Fabric' that operated in impoverished communities.
Marroquín promised the Ranfla a central role in developing the program, control of neighborhood youth centers, power over urban turf and other financial and political benefits, according to current and former U.S. officials, court documents and Treasury Department sanctions. Informants and communications intercepts indicated that some of the resources going to MS-13 came from U.S. government aid, a violation of U.S. law, according to interviews and documents.
'Money was going from us, from USAID, through to this social fabric group,' a former federal law enforcement official said. 'They're supposed to be building things and getting skills and learning. It was funding the gangs.'
Vulcan also gained information from two highly placed Salvadoran officials involved in the talks with MS-13. The officials provided inside information to U.S. agents about the negotiations, which they said Bukele directed, according to interviews.
The accumulating evidence about the gang pact and the suspected misuse of U.S. funds spurred the task force to broaden its initial focus and target alleged corruption in the Bukele government, current and former U.S. officials said.
In April 2021, federal agents prepared a list of powerful Salvadorans for a financial review by the U.S. Treasury Department. Bukele was one of the 15 names. So were Marroquín; Osiris Luna, the director of the national prison system and another alleged organizer of the gang talks; Martha Carolina Recinos, the president's chief of staff; and other political figures and their relatives. The request asked the Treasury Department to search for possible illicit transactions in any bank accounts held in the United States by those on the list, according to documents seen by ProPublica.
The Vulcan task force was seeking evidence in U.S. banks of money laundering tied to the diversion of USAID funding through the gang pact, the documents showed. Agents explained that the task force had 'uncovered information that MS-13 members are in close contact with politically exposed persons in El Salvador,' referring to prominent government figures.
'The USAID funding is believed to have been laundered by the individuals submitted in this request,' who were suspected of 'facilitating, supporting and promoting MS-13 through their official positions,' said the request, which was viewed by ProPublica.
Made under section 314A of the USA Patriot Act, the request for a canvass of U.S. banks requires that investigators show reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause, which is a higher standard. The outcome of the request is unknown. The Treasury Department declined to comment. U.S. prosecutors have not publicly accused Bukele and the others of crimes related to USAID funds.
As U.S. investigators advanced in this political direction, they gained valuable information from the Salvadoran prosecutors who were pressing their own investigation of the gangs and the Bukele administration.
Known in English as
April 2021 was also when a delegation led by Attorney General Melara came to Washington to meet with leaders of Vulcan and other senior U.S. officials. The prosecutors laid out their case against prominent figures in the Bukele government. The 'impressive' presentation, a former U.S. federal law enforcement official said, cited videos, phone intercepts and other evidence showing that Marroquín, prisons director Luna and others had clandestinely arranged for government negotiators and gang leaders to enter and leave prisons, smuggled in phones and destroyed logs of prison visits.
'Melara was very nervous because of the very high level of the people he was investigating,' a former U.S. federal law enforcement official said.
Melara declined to comment, saying he does not discuss his work as attorney general.
Interference
On May 1, 2021 — soon after Melara and his team met with U.S. investigators — the Salvadoran Legislature, controlled by Bukele, voted to expel the attorney general and five justices on the Supreme Court.
The purge was a decisive step by Bukele to centralize power. It drew international condemnation. In El Salvador, critics denounced the president's actions as a 'self-coup.' On his Twitter page, Bukele began calling himself 'the world's coolest dictator.'
For Vulcan, the expulsions marked a dramatic shift in its investigation. The Supreme Court justices had signaled their willingness to sign off on some extraditions. Melara had been a helpful ally who reportedly pledged to do '
'The next prosecutors were not willing to work with us,' said Musto, the former HSI official. 'We were not closed out, but all these things that we had in place that we were moving to getting people back here slowed down to a snail's pace.'
The first clash came over Armando Melgar Diaz, an alleged MS-13 leader who acted as a middleman between gangs in the United States and senior leaders in El Salvador. Melgar, known as 'Blue,' had ordered the
The newly constituted Supreme Court
The rationale made no sense to Vulcan prosecutors. The Justice Department had already promised that it would not pursue such punishments against Melgar, according to records and interviews. U.S. and Salvadoran officials attributed the sudden reversal to fear that Melgar could link Bukele and his government to the pact with MS-13.
'Melgar Diaz was going to be the test case,' Musto said. 'It was going to be an easy win for Vulcan.'
Information obtained by U.S. agents included allegations that Bukele's judicial adviser, Conan Castro-Ramírez, had called one of the new Supreme Court justices and told him to find ways to stop the extradition of Melgar, according to interviews. When the justice objected, saying that the extradition had already been approved, Castro allegedly ordered him to reverse it. 'That's why we put you there,' he said, according to the interviews.
The State Department
A Salvadoran court
'Bukele and his government are using the entire state apparatus to prevent these people from being extradited,' a person with knowledge of the Salvadoran judicial system said in a recent interview.
Miguel Ángel Flores Durel, a newly appointed Supreme Court justice who
In July 2022, El Salvador agreed to extradite two lower-ranking MS-13 members charged with the murders of Salvadoran immigrants in Long Island in
This was a deliberate strategy, the person said. Flores said that El Salvador needed to continue some extraditions in order to 'calm' U.S. officials, who were complaining about the lack of cooperation with Vulcan, the person said. (
It didn't work. The extradition of other criminals by the Bukele-aligned Supreme Court only emphasized the lack of cooperation on requests for the senior MS-13 leaders.
'We were never told officially that it wouldn't happen, but it became impossible,' said Brunner, the former FBI agent.
In October 2022, Bukele's new attorney general announced that criminals would first have to serve their sentence in El Salvador before being sent to the U.S. — an interpretation of the country's extradition treaty that differed from the previous Supreme Court.
'We aren't going to be sending Salvadorans without them first paying for the crimes they have committed' in El Salvador, Rodolfo Delgado
Threats and Roadblocks
The Bukele government's interference with the U.S. investigation went beyond blocking extraditions, U.S. officials said.
Senior Bukele allies also waged a campaign of harassment and intimidation against the Salvadoran officials who had investigated corruption and assisted the Vulcan task force, according to interviews with current and former U.S. and Salvadoran officials.
The government threatened officials with arrest and sent police patrols to their homes, according to current and former U.S. and Salvadoran officials. At least eight senior Salvadoran law enforcement and judicial officials fled El Salvador for the United States and elsewhere. Vulcan provided them with travel money, language classes, housing and help gaining legal immigration status and finding jobs. In one instance, a U.S. Embassy official escorted a Salvadoran prosecutor out of the country because American officials believed his life was in danger, according to an official familiar with the incident.
The Salvadoran government also weakened special 'vetted units' of the police that had worked with the FBI and other U.S. agencies, according to current and former U.S. officials.
Bukele's allies didn't stop there. They allegedly helped the escape or release from prison of at least four members of the MS-13 leadership council sought by Vulcan for alleged crimes in the U.S., according to interviews, court documents and press reports.
Elmer Canales-Rivera, alias 'Crook de Hollywood,' was one of the most wanted of the Ranfla members. He had been imprisoned for several murders in El Salvador, including a case in which he
In November 2021, Canales escaped from prison. El Faro, a prominent investigative news outlet, and other Salvadoran media published stories that
Canales was caught in Mexico and turned over to U.S. authorities. Currently in prison awaiting trial, he has pleaded not guilty.
Over the next several months, three other MS-13 leaders disappeared from Salvadoran prisons, causing Durham, the head of the task force, to express his concern in
The purge of the Supreme Court and prosecutors, the blocked extraditions and the disappearance of the MS-13 gang members marked a significant deterioration in relations between Bukele and the administration of President Joe Biden. Agencies across the government began looking for ways to push El Salvador to cooperate.
Acting U.S. Ambassador Jean Manes announced a '
'What are we seeing now? It is a decline in democracy,'
In December 2021, the Treasury Department
Nonetheless, former members of the task force said they felt that the Biden administration treated Vulcan as a lower priority and cut its resources. They said Biden officials saw the task force as a Trump initiative and wanted to focus on other law enforcement targets, such as human trafficking.
'As soon as the Biden administration came in, we were slowed down,' Brunner said. 'There was a lot more red tape we had to go through.' Former Biden officials denied this was the case.
Whatever truce had existed between the Salvadoran government and MS-13 collapsed in March 2022. The country descended into chaos. Over one three-day period, some 80 people were killed in gang-related violence.
Bukele reacted forcefully. He declared a nationwide 'state of exception' that suspended constitutional protections. Police began rounding up thousands of accused gang members and others. He announced the construction of the megaprison known as CECOT.
The policies proved tremendously popular. Murder rates dropped dramatically, though human rights advocates criticized the loss of civil liberties. Bukele dismissed their complaints.
'Some say we have put thousands in prison, but the reality is that we have set millions free,' he has said, an assertion he repeated to Trump in the Oval Office.
The Turnaround
Despite the harsh treatment of gang members — an estimated 14,500 people are now held in CECOT — one thing did not change: The Bukele government continued to refuse to extradite senior MS-13 leaders to the United States.
The reasons for Bukele's alleged protection of the gang leadership versus his relentless pursuit of the rank and file are the subject of speculation in both the United States and El Salvador. One possible explanation, according to current and former U.S. and Salvadoran officials: Bukele is aware that Vulcan was gathering evidence that could lead to criminal charges and political damage. The imprisoned leaders are potential witnesses to his alleged deal with MS-13, while El Salvador's street-level gangsters are not.
In February 2023, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment for another group of leaders, most of whom operated a tier below the Ranfla, relaying its directives to gangsters on the streets. The 13 defendants were accused of terrorism and drug smuggling, among other charges.
The U.S. announced it would 'explore options for their extradition with the government of El Salvador.' The Justice Department declined to say whether any such requests had been made.
In filing the charges, prosecutors made their strongest public accusations yet about deals between the Bukele government and the gangs. Without naming the president or his allies,
The gang bosses also 'agreed to reduce the number of public murders in El Salvador, which politically benefited the government of El Salvador, by creating the perception that the government was reducing the murder rate,' the indictment said.
As part of the arrangement, the senior MS-13 leaders demanded that the Bukele government refuse to extradite them, the indictment said. The alleged condition appears to be in effect. To date, none of the extradition requests for more than a dozen high-ranking gang members has been approved.
In the face of obstacles, Vulcan relied increasingly on the Mexican government for help. During the past four years, Mexican authorities have captured nine of the 27 MS-13 leaders named in the indictments and deported them to the United States, where they were arrested. This year, prosecutors obtained guilty pleas to terrorism charges from two lower-ranking bosses, including one who prosecutors said had helped implement the deal between the Bukele administration and the gang. Sentencing for the men is pending.
Since Trump took office this year, his administration has redirected Vulcan's mission to also target Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang that the president has put in the spotlight.
There has been a remarkable recent development related to MS-13, however. After more than five years leading the Vulcan task force, Durham wrote letters asking the judge overseeing the cases to dismiss charges against two gang leaders in U.S. custody, allowing them to be deported to El Salvador. The letters were dated
César Humberto López Larios, a member of the Ranfla known as 'Greñas,' had his charges dismissed and was returned to El Salvador with
Then, in April, Durham asked for the dismissal of terrorism charges against a lower-ranking MS-13 prisoner, Vladimir Antonio Arevalo-Chavez, alias 'Vampiro,' according to recently unsealed court records. His defense lawyers are seeking to stall the request to give them time to fight his deportation to El Salvador. He has pleaded not guilty.
Durham acknowledged in his letters to the judge that the evidence against the two men is 'strong.' After millions spent on an operation involving investigators and prosecutors from the U.S., El Salvador and other countries, Vulcan had amassed a trove of evidence aimed at incarcerating the MS-13 leaders who had overseen the killings, rapes and beatings of Americans. Prosecutors
Durham said prosecutors were dropping their pursuit of the cases 'due to geopolitical and national security concerns.'
It was like a reverse extradition. Trump was giving Bukele the kind of high-level criminals that the United States had never received from El Salvador.
During the negotiations over the use of El Salvador's prison, Trump officials agreed to pay some $6 million to house the deported men and acceded to an additional demand.
Bukele had one specific request, according to Milena Mayorga, his ambassador to the United States.
'I want you to send me the gang leaders who are in the United States,' she quoted Bukele as telling U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
For Bukele, she said in a