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Security & Strategic Review - April 2017 (ISSN 1741-4202)

POINTERS

GUATEMALA/EL SALVADOR | Head of MS-13 captured in Guatemala. On 11 April, Guatemala’s interior ministry announced the arrest of Pedro Benjamín Rivas Celaya (also known as José Isaías Flores de Paz, or ‘El Sniper’), the alleged leader of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) street gang in El Salvador. He was arrested along with six others during an operation carried out by the national police (PNC) and the Transnational Anti-Gang initiative (TAG). A press release by Guatemala’s interior ministry notes that the arrests were made as part of an anti-extortion operation with raids taking place in the capital, Guatemala City, Guatemala department, and the nearby municipalities of San Miguel Petapa and San José Pínula, also in Guatemala department. According to the interior ministry press release, Rivas is part of the MS-13 clique known as ‘La Federación’ and is among the 100 most wanted criminals in El Salvador. Also arrested was Cristian ‘El Baby’ Fuentes Ajosal, a second-in-command of the MS-13 and suspected leader of the M-13 clique ‘Los Mafiosos’. While the TAG initiative dates back to 2007, Rivas’s arrest comes amid other recent signs of closer cooperation between the countries of the so-called ‘Northern Triangle’ (comprising El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras). This includes a new trinational task force launched in November 2016, as part of the Plan of the Alliance for Prosperity (PAP), launched in 2014 in coordination with the US government, aimed at addressing the root causes of the Central American unaccompanied child migrant crisis.

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