https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0519

An investigation into officials of the Government of El Salvador and incarcerated leaders of gangs, such as Treasury-designated Mara Salvatrucha 13 (MS-13), has revealed covert negotiations between government officials and the criminal organization. MS-13 was designated on October 11, 2012 pursuant to E.O. 13581 for its involvement in serious transnational criminal activities, including drug trafficking, kidnapping, human smuggling, sex trafficking, murder, assassinations, racketeering, blackmail, extortion, and immigration offenses. Osiris Luna Meza (Luna) and Carlos Amilcar Marroquin Chica (Marroquin) led, facilitated, and organized a number of secret meetings involving incarcerated gang leaders, in which known gang members were allowed to enter the prison facilities and meet with senior gang leadership. These meetings were part of the Government of El Salvador’s efforts to negotiate a secret truce with gang leadership.

In 2020, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s (Bukele) administration provided financial incentives to Salvadoran gangs MS-13 and 18th Street Gang (Barrio 18) to ensure that incidents of gang violence and the number of confirmed homicides remained low. Over the course of these negotiations with Luna and Marroquin, gang leadership also agreed to provide political support to the Nuevas Ideas political party in upcoming elections. Nuevas Ideas is the President’s political party and won a two-thirds super majority in legislative elections in 2021. The Bukele administration was represented in such transactions by Luna, the Chief of the Salvadoran Penal System and Vice Minister of Justice and Public Security, and Marroquin, Chairman of the Social Fabric Reconstruction Unit. In addition to Salvadoran government financial allocations in 2020, the gangs also received privileges for gang leadership incarcerated in Salvadoran prisons, such as the provision of mobile phones and prostitutes.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Luna also negotiated an agreement with gang leaders from MS-13 and Barrio 18 for the gangs’ support of President Bukele’s national quarantine in gang-controlled areas. Separately, Luna participated in a scheme to steal and re-sell government purchased staple goods that were originally destined for COVID-19 pandemic relief. These items were transferred to private companies and then resold on the private market or back to the government. Luna’s mother, Alma Yanira Meza Olivares (Meza), acted as the negotiator in some of these transactions. Additionally, Luna and Meza developed a scheme to embezzle millions of dollars from El Salvador’s prison commissary system. They also created fraudulent job positions within the prison system, in which supposed “employees” would receive monthly paychecks and return most of the earnings back to Luna and Meza.

Luna and Marroquin are designated pursuant to E.O. 13818 for being foreign persons who are current or former government officials, or persons acting for or on behalf of such an official, who are responsible for or complicit in, or have directly or indirectly engaged in, corruption, including the misappropriation of state assets, the expropriation of private assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources, or bribery.

Meza is designated pursuant to E.O. 13818 for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, Luna.