Samael — 1 year ago(March 25, 2025 03:50 PM)

Gang leader evades US justice with deportation to El Salvador
By Evan Perez and Priscilla Alvarez, CNN
7 minute read
Updated 4:25 PM EDT
Mon March 24, 2025
As part of the deportation flights of alleged terrorists at the center of a legal and political storm, the US quietly dropped charges against a key alleged MS-13 leader and returned him to the pro-Trump leader of El Salvador.
César Humberto López-Larios, an alleged top leader of the MS-13 gang who US investigators believe has information that could implicate top Salvadoran government officials in possibly corrupt deals with the violent gang, was deported on one of the controversial flights, according to current and former US officials and court documents.
It’s a deal that would benefit President Nayib Bukele, the brash Salvadoran leader who has become a star among pro-Trump US conservatives.
“He’s a friend of mine,” President Donald Trump said of Bukele in the Oval Office on Friday.
The deportations are part of a plan by the Trump administration to pay El Salvador to imprison immigrants accused of crimes and expelled from the US. MS-13 deportations, particularly of leaders, who are a priority for Salvadoran officials, and Trump officials agreed, according to a US official.
But bringing MS-13 leaders to face charges in the US has been a top priority for the Justice Department, and the transfer is a major loss of potential intelligence for investigators who helped track down López-Larios for his arrest in Mexico last year, current and former officials say.
“It’s a historical loss,” says a former federal agent who spent years working on MS-13 and other gang cases. “He was a potential high-level source. And he doesn’t get to face US justice.”
“How this vile, disgusting, and immoral behavior has become normalized… is something our descendants will study.”