A court in El Salvador sentenced Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang member Ángel Geovany Guzmán González to 1,420 years in prison for dozens of crimes committed in the span of six months, the office of the Salvadoran Attorney General announced on Monday.
Guzmán González, also known with the alias “Diabólico,” (Diabolical) was convicted alongside 45 other MS-13 members on Monday in a mass trial against members of the Salvadoran criminal gang.
The Attorney General’s Office accused the convicted MS-13 members of planning to kill seven members of El Salvador’s National Civic Police (PNC) and local prosecutors. Local investigators reportedly managed to uncover and stop the mass killing conspiracy before it took place.
Collectively, all 46 gang members were found guilty on 56 counts of aggravated extortion, seven counts of aggravated homicides, and 45 cases of proposition and conspiracy to commit the crimes of aggravated homicide and organized terrorism. All of the crimes were committed in the span of six months, between September 26, 2018, and March 26, 2019.
Guzmán González’s 1,420-year-long prison sentence is the result of seven charges of aggravated homicide, 37 charges of aggravated extortion, and 25 charges of proposition and conspiracy to commit the crime of aggravated homicide against the nine PNC officials.
Some of the other men and women sentenced on Monday’s trial also received centuries-long prison sentences, the Attorney General’s Office revealed.
Hugo Alexander Argueta Bonilla received a 764-year-long sentence on multiple counts of aggravated homicide, aggravated extortion, and proposition and conspiracy to commit the crime of aggravated homicide. Carlos Eduardo Díaz Rodríguez, another MS-13 gang member, was sentenced to 567 years in prison on several charges of aggravated homicide, organized terrorism, proposition and conspiracy to commit the crime of aggravated homicide, and 17 counts of aggravated extortion.
Other top convicted individuals received sentences ranging from 148 to 338 years, while 37 MS-13 members received sentences ranging from eight to 138 years in prison. Ana Ruth Sagovia Merino, the only woman in the group of 46 convicted MS-13 members, was sentenced to 148 years in prison on charges of aggravated homicide, aggravated extortion, and organized terrorism.
The attorney general’s office explained that the victims of the extortion were truckers and merchants from the city of San Miguel from whom the gang members demanded money to not kill them.
“One victim was asked for $10,000 in a single payment to pay a lawyer to defend terrorists who had been arrested,” the attorney general’s statement read.
El Salvador has been under a de facto state of martial law since March 2022 as a result of a still-active emergency decree. The decree, which had an initial 30-day duration and has been continuously renewed on a monthly basis, has allowed the government led by President Nayib Bukele to conduct a widespread crackdown against the nation’s most violent criminal gangs, such as MS-13 and 18th Street. The crackdown has resulted in a dramatic reduction of crime and gang violence in El Salvador and the reported “virtual disappearance” of the gangs in the nation’s communities.
The still-ongoing state of emergency decree allowed the Salvadoran government to construct a 40,000-bed “mega prison” inaugurated in February 2023. According to Salvadoran Security Minister Gustavo Villatoro, authorities have arrested 79,184 gang members as of April. The Salvadoran government estimates that around 25,000 remain at large.
The Salvadoran Congress approved a series of legal provisions last year that grant the nation’s courts the ability to conduct mass trials against criminal gang members who have been arrested as part of the Salvadoran government’s crackdown. One such trial conducted in February saw nearly 500 suspected MS-13 leaders collectively facing charges for over 37,400 crimes committed between 2012 and 2022.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
