Jalisco Cartel’s Failed Plot to Capture El Crook de Hollywood: This Is How a Gang Member Cheated the Bucal Government

A few months ago, this news spread like wildfire. Elmer Canals Riviera, aka Hollywood Crook, one of the leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha leadership, was detained in Mexico, under an air of complete secrecy and mystery. Not much is known about how he was caught. He was known for his extensive criminal history, his ties to Mexican cartels, that he was one of the key men in negotiations between the gang and the government of Nayeb Bukel, and that the United States wanted his head for acts of terrorism. The arrest was made on November 8 in Chiapas, southern Mexico. A week later, the United States Department of Justice released a statement, summarizing that Al Crook, a member of the so-called “Twelve Apostles of the Devil” (Mara’s governing body), was arrested after being handed over by Mexican agents at Houston International Airport. Already in US custody.

The capture of El Crook was a scandal, as it was believed that Buquel’s government had already captured him in El Salvador in June 2021. Before his arrest, US authorities were suspicious of his whereabouts and believed the versions he had were true. He was unceremoniously released in November of that year, rewarded for being an indispensable element in the gang’s negotiations with senior Bucal administration officials.

Court documents from the case in the United States revealed that gang members were allowed to enter and leave prisons with complete impunity, and the Salvadoran press asserted that they lived in luxury in the most exclusive areas of the capital, despite the fact that the Washington Interpol Red Card was in effect. Requested his extradition several times. At some point, the gang member had to go into hiding, first to Guatemala and then to Mexico. There is a mafia deal in El Salvador that is blocking Al Crook’s arrival in New York, where the prosecutor’s office wanted to put him in the dock, but the White House stopped nothing.

When they discovered that the United States was on the trail of Al Crook, Salvadoran authorities began their own search to regain credibility with Washington and deny that they had a deal with the criminals, according to an investigation published by the lighthouse This Friday. The report tells the story of a gang member identified as Rafael Eduardo aka Rafa either Chafawho saw a golden opportunity when “the Salvadoran government launched a desperate race to recapture Crook and return him to El Salvador before the February 2024 elections.”

As always, according to this investigation, Rafael was in contact for months with Inspector Raul Eduardo Reyes Escuntla, head of the elite division against organized crime, and Boss Ivan, and convinced him that he could organize a kidnapping operation to capture Elmer Canales Rivera in Mexico. Rafa told him that the Jalisco Nueva Generation Cartel (CJNG), one of the world’s most powerful criminal groups, could help capture the Buquel government and that a group of coyotes (human traffickers) had information to track him down. territory. Mexican. In return, the gang member, who was a fugitive from justice and hiding in another Central American country, received thousands of dollars “per person” and achieved the release of his sister, who was imprisoned for being his relative. Rule of exception established by Bukele in early 2022.

Raphael is not just a gang member. He’s a veteran who rose to the highest levels of the Barrio 18 gang and found a place at the negotiating table with some of the worst criminals and most powerful politicians in the war that other El Salvadoran administrations agreed with the gang. He sat down with senior officers of all stripes left and right and became the spokesman for his own enemies. With the experience of a good businessman, El Chafa set the price for the capture of Crook: “One million dollars for the Jalisco Nueva Generation cartel, 250,000 dollars for Barrio 18 Surenos and 50,000 dollars for him,” he published. the lighthouse.

But it was all a hoax. “Raphael never involved his gang, he never came into contact with the CJNG, he never went to Mexico and there were never any gangsters discussing the price of kidnapping. What he did was come into contact with this newspaper and the US authorities,” said Salvadoran media, which based its investigation on audio obtained from conversations between Rafa and Chief Ivan, a gang member’s own confession, and judicial documents that confirm the story. .

The Salvadoran government paid a gang member thousands of dollars and shared classified information with him to try to capture him, according to the investigation. “My uncle (Crook) was in Miraflores, Chiapas; But since he was restless, he went to Guadalajara, there he is. Tell that boy (Rafael),” reads one of the messages Inspector Reyes Escuntla sent to the gang member’s sister on October 1, practically a month before Al Crook was captured. His relative had to inform another high-ranking member of the Salvadoran police to stay on the authorities’ radar.

Rafa details how he tricked the police chief and told him what he wanted to hear. “Except for the (Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel) I was talking about us (Bario 18 Sureños gang) with people in the area where I’m from and where he (Crook) also hangs out,” one of the shared recordings heard. By a gang member himself.

Rafael dragged his feet when they asked him for details about the whereabouts of Canales Riviera or when they asked him for specific dates to deliver progress on the mission assigned to him. “Half my time is travel expenses, my sister is out, I start sitting with these people,” he said in that conversation. El Chafa’s deception was credible because over the years authorities in the region have documented the links that exist between El Salvador’s gangs and the most powerful Mexican cartels, whether the CJNG, the Sinaloa Cartel or Los Zetas. This is stated in the judicial file of Al Crook and other members of Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13 in the United States.

Earlier, El Salvador’s elite Corporation Against Organized Crime campaigned for migrant smugglers who dominated the routes of criminal groups in Central America to track down El Crook. But most people were reluctant to cooperate. It was one of these coyotes, as they are colloquially known, who approached Reyes Escuntla with Rafa. “Their fear is that Al Crook will talk to the United States and take over this whole government,” said Kevin Genovese, a businessman who was also recruited for the failed conspiracy and who complained that the Buccaneer government had given the Rafale practically everything. was So asked, when he gave nothing to the traffickers. Coyote made the allegations in a video published on social networks in November 2023. A month later, Genovese was captured in El Salvador and never heard from again, he says. the lighthouse.

The deal between Chief Ivan and Rafa fell apart when the media reported the arrest of Al Crook in Mexico. That same November 8, the gang member’s sister fled Salvadoran territory to avoid retaliation. El Chafa and his sister entered the protection program of United States officials that same month, according to the investigation.

Elections will be held in El Salvador on February 4, and Deputy Bukele is the heavy favorite. The president will seek re-election thanks to a ruling by the Supreme Court of Justice, controlled by ministers close to him, which overturned the ban in force and forced him to wait 10 years to return to government. Despite scandals, allegations of corruption and repression, controversial deals with gangs, repression of the independent press, and the country’s authoritarian turn, the president has an approval rating of nearly 90%.

The day El Crook de Hollywood fell in Mexico, Buchel limited himself to sharing Emoji with a winking face. Three weeks later he got his license to campaign after handing over his personal secretary to the government. If he gets more than 50% of the vote, a second round will not be needed and he will complete his re-election to become president until 2029.

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