ARCHIVERO. Infiltración del narco en 2008

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El director de la Policía Nacional Civil de El Salvador, el general retirado Francisco Salinas, le acaba de confirmar a la prensa que la banda de narcotraficantes Los Perrones, investigada por autoridades salvadoreñas y estadounidenses desde 2006 en El Salvador, se ha empezado a reagrupar. "Por ahora no descartamos que existan algunos elementos que todavía quedaron sueltos, que a lo mejor quieran recomponerse", dice Salinas en una nota publicada el 14 de abril en La Prensa Gráfica.  Es importante saber que la Policía mantiene en la mira a esta banda, una que, según las informaciones más recientes de inteligencia, mantiene vivo el tráfico de cocaína desde Costa Rica hasta el corredor de la carretera Panamericana en el oriente salvadoreño.

Que esta banda se reagrupe, y que tenga la capacidad de seguir moviendo cargamentos grandes de coca o de manejar el mercado de bienes raíces para garantizar el lavado de sus activos, implica que el riesgo de infiltración en el Estado salvadoreño sigue vigente. Entre 2004 y 2008, como quedó demostrado en expedientes de la Fiscalía, la División Antinarcóticos de la PNC, la DEA y de varios tribunales del país, así como en varias series de investigaciones periodísticas, la infiltración de Los Perrones en la Policía fue, entre otras cosas, lo que permitió a estos narcos consolidar su negocio. Por eso es muy bueno que hoy la Policía mantenga en la mira a la banda.

Dejo aquí la versión en inglés de un artículo de opinión que escribí en La Prensa Gráfica el 7 de diciembre de 2008 sobre estos peligros (link a versión en español).

Mexico, closer to us.

The narco reinassance

Op-ed piece published in La Prensa Gráfica in December 2008.

In this piece I outlined two basic ideas: 1. The infiltration of organized crime in Salvadoran public offices, although widely exposed in the media, had been ignored or concealed by the authorities. 2. The official narrative had been that El Salvador was not to be considered a Mexico-like scenario in terms of narco penetration and operational capacity. Time and further investigations proved that thesis wrong.

I insist. These days our country is busy with the important tasks of digesting, analyzing and living with the political anxieties created by the electoral campaign. Meanwhile, the threat of narcotraffick lives in our backyard and El Salvador is not giving this phenomenon the analysis it deserves.

Today, aware of the importance of this subject, we publish the first chapter of a journalistic series about the infiltration of the narcos in El Salvador. Through a long investigation we have learned three things. One, the drug trafficking organizations that have Mexico on its knees, are actively present in our country. Two, the local crime networks, cartel’s subcontractors, have evolved due to a complex diversification of the business, a process we have followed by tracking the genesis of Los Perrones band. Three, Los Perrones is still operational, with a low profile, thanks in part to the institutional silence that surround these issues. It is like that: in El Salvador public officials and politicians, especially those directly involved with the local war on drugs, tend to be silent or, worse, they overlook their responsibilities.

Three weeks ago I traveled to Mexico to participate in a seminar on Journalism and narcotraffick. Fifteen journalists –a Salvadoran, a Colombian, a few Venezuelans and a large number of Mexicans– heard about the renaissance of the narcos in the region; furthermore, we were able to certify that institutional silence is a well spread practice in our countries.

“Governments are used to remaining silent, but if that takes place in Mexico and Central America, the drama of the narco will be a lot worst than it ever was in Colombia during the big Medellin an Cali cartels era. It is the worst threat to democratic stability in the region according to the U.N.”, Jineth Bidoya told us. Bidoya is a Colombian reporter that has covered the narco source for 20 years. Nowadays she works at El Tiempo newspaper.

I can still remember testimonies that Mexican colleagues offered at the seminar. They described themselves as overwhelmed by the horror the Cartels have brought to their country since President Felipe Calderon took office. The reporters are confused, sometimes even paralyzed by fear. Not just journalism, the whole Mexican society is near a catatonic stage in front of the brutal homicide figures attributed to the Cartels: 5,000 in 2008.

The worst mistake we could ever make in El Salvador would be to think that Mexico is still far away from us. Or Colombia. Or Guatemala, a country in which important parts of the territory are in the hands of the narcos thanks to the total failure of the state in its fight against crime. Here, in El Salvador, it is no secret that our own police drug enforcement unit is compromised: high ranked police officials and assistants to the Attorney General’s office have publicly recognized the lack of compromise to investigate the local narco networks. These networks, according to Government sources, have already infiltrated our political and justice systems.

In Mexico, Jineth Bidoya told us how Pablo Escobar Gavidia, the late Colombia drug lord, started his career: he was a lowlife thief and a tobacco and whisky smuggler who, step by step, made his way in the newly formed cocaine business, entered local politics, bought policemen and started an empire. Sounds familiar? Narcos in the National Assembly? Smugglers in Eastern El Salvador that became narcotraffickers? Police complicity? Salvadoran institutions must respond at once. Mexico is closer to us.