Trump & Bukele's corruption detailed in Pro Publica investigation

[Nevilledog]

https://www.propublica.org/article/bukele-trump-el-salvador-ms13-gang-vulcan-corruption-investigation


In mid-April, President Donald Trump sat down in the Oval Office with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador to celebrate a new partnership. They had recently negotiated an extraordinary deal in which El Salvador agreed to incarcerate in a maximum security prison hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants that the Trump administration had labeled as violent criminals, though few had been convicted of such crimes. The U.S. also sent back accused members of the notorious Salvadoran gang MS-13 — which both the U.S. and El Salvador have designated as a terrorist organization.

Bukele’s presidency has been defined by his successful crackdown against MS-13. He has jailed tens of thousands of alleged gang members, transforming one of the hemisphere’s most dangerous nations into one of its safest. Although human rights groups have criticized his tactics, Bukele remains extremely popular in El Salvador.

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.”

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.

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