A former police officer confessed that the intellectual and financial author of 36 homicides, out of a total of 97 carried out by the extermination group belonging to the National Civil Police of El Salvador, was the Mayor of San Luis Talpa, Salvador Menéndez, a close friend of President Nayib Bukele, and who continues to serve as a public servant, despite the executions in which he is related.
Mexico City, November 8 (However).- A former police officer from El Salvador confessed to having committed 97 homicides, of which almost a third were ordered and paid for by a Mayor close to Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador. Among the victims of the agent, a member of an extermination group, are dozens of alleged gang members, a priest and several businessmen, an investigation by the Salvadoran newspaper revealed. The Lighthouse.
According to the investigation, the intellectual and financial author of at least 36 homicides, out of a total of 97 carried out by the extermination group called Falcon 32belonging to the National Civil Police (PNC)it was the Mayor of San Luis Talpa, Salvador Menéndez, who has been re-elected in that public office since 2012, the last time in 2024, when he was elected as Mayor of La Paz West.
According to information obtained by The Lighthousethe extermination group operated for five years, from 2015 to 2020, of which for three years, from 2015 to 2018, they received orders, financing and rewards from Menéndez to commit 36 crimes, despite which, since the Mayor’s participation is mentioned in the investigation file of the confessed former police officer, he has not even been called to testify, as the official himself stated.
“This Tuesday, October 28 at 4 in the afternoon, Mayor Menéndez called the reporter in charge of this investigation after he left messages with his secretary of the municipality. In the call, the mayor said he knew the statements of the witness considered [confeso] with the code name Horus, but he assured that he has never been contacted by any authority officially,” he stated. The Lighthouse.
According to the statement of the confessed former agent – identified in the investigation as Horus, to keep his identity anonymous –, who was captured in August 2020, along with three other colleagues who were also part of the extermination group, the murders commissioned by the mayor began in February 2016, with Menéndez’s order to arrest and behead MS-13 gang members.
“Horus” stated in his statement, obtained by The Lighthousethat Mayor Menéndez argued at that time that the homicides were intended for the Government of El Salvador to allocate more resources to the municipality from the Fund for the Local Development of Municipalities (FODES), a program that was in effect until 2021, and to do so it had to position San Luis Talpa as one of the most violent.
“The majority of homicides that were committed and canceled (paid) by Mayor SALVADOR MENÉNDEZ were carried out so that the Mayor’s Office would increase the FODES and thus be able to have more money, the complainant does not know if the payment was money from the Mayor’s Office or the mayor’s staff, who is the owner of the Hotel Estero y Mar located in the Zunganera of San Luis Talpa, department of La Paz,” states part of the former police officer’s confession published by The Lighthouse.
That same document indicates that the Mayor did not always specify the victims he ordered to be executed, many times he only instructed the group to murder gang members at random. “Horus assures that in some cases the councilor directly pointed out the victims with name, alias and even location. In other cases, they selected the gang member, killed him and then came to collect their reward from the councilor,” details the Salvadoran media.
“For example, the same night that they left the two heads at the entrance to the municipality, in March 2016, the team killed two other men, father and son, accused of being gang members, taking them out of their homes and leaving them at the entrance to a sugarcane field, about three kilometers from where they left the heads,” added the Central American media.
The confessed ex-policeman also involved other high-ranking officers in these executions, such as Henry Barahona, then head of the Zafra Plan in La Paz, and José Hernán Peña Morales, then head of the San Vicente Investigations Department, and even a drug trafficker identified as “Chepón.” All of these would have also paid the Halcón 32 group for several murders.
Among these crimes, the case of priest Ricardo Antonio Cortez, “rector of the San Óscar Arnulfo Romero seminary, in Santiago de María, in Usulután, and parish priest of San Francisco Chinameca, in La Paz”, stands out in August 2020, who was allegedly executed on the orders of “Chepón”, who also ordered other homicides, for which Halcón 32 even had the support of extermination groups from adjacent municipalities.
Regarding the modus operandi, the 220-page file details that the extermination groups always made it appear that the victims lost their lives during a confrontation with law enforcement or between the gangs themselves. To do this, first, the agents “faked a police operation”, transferred the detainees to “despopulated areas” and there they executed them with firearms from a distance, although sometimes they used machetes.
The police then altered the crime scene to make it look like it was a confrontation. Likewise, “Horus” assured that Mayor Menéndez provided them with weapons, vehicles and all kinds of resources to carry out the executions, although the witness said he did not know where the resources came from, whether from FODES or from the personal assets of the Mayor, who allegedly owns the accommodation called Hotel Estero y Mar.
The former police witness also pointed out that for each murdered victim they received a payment of one thousand dollars. “According to the witness, the money was delivered by the mayor in white envelopes with the logo of the Municipal Mayor’s Office of San Luis Talpa, sometimes in his municipal office or sometimes in the office of the Hotel Estero y Mar,” added El Faro journalist Bryan Avelar, who signed the investigation.
Another of the relevant cases that “Horus” mentioned was the Mayor’s order for the extermination group to burn down two houses that were next to the Estero y Mar Hotel, where the people who lived there did not want to leave so that the Mayor could build some viewing points in that area, so the mayor ordered the properties to be set on fire even though they were inhabited to force the owners to leave.
Foto: x @nayibukele
“Horus” was arrested in August 2020, along with three of his companions, for the disappearance and murder of two young students, which occurred in July 2017. Both victims, “Andrés Alexánder Guardado Ascencio, 18, and Kevin Alexander R., 17,” were detained after getting off a truck under the alleged accusation that they were extortionists, although without witnesses. The two young people were found dead in “a canal in the La Zambombera canton of San Luis Talpa.”
This case was the one that led to the four police officers being arrested and prosecuted in 2020, however, despite the fact that Mayor Menéndez was repeatedly mentioned as the intellectual and financial author in the detainees’ statements, he was never summoned to at least testify, since Raúl Melara, then Attorney General, was relieved of his position by Prosecutor Rodolfo Delgado by orders of President Bukele.
“One of the agents, captured for the disappearance and murder of two students, added other terrible information: 36 of those deaths were commissioned and paid for by the mayor of San Luis Talpa, Salvador Menéndez. He asked to kill gang members or young people who looked like gang members, he asked to kill a woman from whom he received too many complaints and even a man who was “very annoying” near one of his businesses,” highlighted El Faro.
According to the Central American media, for more than 10 years, around 2013, Bukele and Menéndez have maintained a close relationship, despite the fact that they belonged to different political forces. What began with an exchange of compliments, through social networks, became a solid friendship that even culminated in electoral support, since in 2019, Bukele registered as a presidential candidate for the Grand Alliance for National Unity (GANA) party.
Prior to this intention, on several occasions Menéndez expressed his admiration for Bukele, of whom he literally said: “for me @nayibbukele should be our future president of the Republic.” Already on his way to the presidency of El Salvador, the Mayor “financed Bukele’s presidential campaign rally,” recalled El Faro, which also highlighted that after Bukele was installed in the federal government, Menéndez did not waste any moment to show off his friendship with the Salvadoran president.
These expressions by the Mayor unleashed criticism and accusations against him, of whom they assured that he continued to head the Mayor’s Office of San Luis Talpa thanks to the friendship he maintained with the President of El Salvador, which Menéndez rejected, ensuring that their friendship lasted for years and that he felt proud that they said he was protected by the president.
“I want to tell you that I have had a friendship with President Bukele for many years, I love him and respect him a lot and I admire him for being a brilliant man, and if people believe that I took shelter under his figure, then I am glad. Here I am and I am sure that President Bukele is not going to leave me alone for at least these three years that the people have given me to govern.”
“The highest level political authorities have used public security as a fundamental campaign tool. In exchange they have given a blank check to the PNC. Some agents took justice into their own hands. Others like Halcón 32 made impunity, and death, a business,” concluded journalist Bryan Avelar, in his investigation. “Impunity is guaranteed from the Presidential House,” he concluded.