The operation began Saturday morning at dawn: 8,500 soldiers and 1,500 police deployed to hermetically surround the town of Soyapango, on the outskirts of San Salvador, to track down the “maras”, these fearsome criminal gangs who bring terror to El Salvador.
“In less than 48 hours, more than 140 gang members were arrested in connection with the siege”tweeted Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday December 4 evening.
Soyapango has the reputation of being a stronghold of the “mara” Barrio 18, one of the two most violent gangs in the country along with its rival MS-13. The police notably announced the capture of Alexander Pineda, alias “Lazy”, one of the leaders of Barrio 18 and “one of the country’s most wanted terrorists, who ordered nationwide killings and extortion”according to her.
A prison planned for 40,000 criminals
The authorities did not announce when this encirclement would end, and did not publicly display those arrested as they usually do. “We are not going to leave Soyapango until we capture the last gang member”promised the Minister of Defense, René Merino.
More than 58,000 suspected members of the “maras” have been arrested in El Salvador since President Bukele declared the end of March the ” war “ against these gangs. To cope with the influx of detainees, the prison administration undertook to build a gigantic prison for 40,000 suspected criminals in Tecoluca, a rural region in the center of the country.