El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, who was recently sworn in for a second term, has claimed that the notorious MS-13 gang is ‘satanic’ and carries out chilling rituals including ‘child sacrifice’
MS-13, one of the most feared gangs in the world, carries out horrifying satanic rituals including child sacrifice, El Salvador’s president has claimed.
Also known as Mara Salvatrucha, MS-13 originated in Los Angeles, California in the 1980s, originally set up to protect El Salvadoran immigrants from other LA gangs. Eventually, the violent group expanded into an international criminal gang notorious for their cold-blooded crimes and many of the gang’s members were deported back to El Salvador after the country’s civil war ended in 1992.
It’s here that Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s president, claims the group turned “satanic”. In an interview with right-wing television host Tucker Carlson, Bukele, who was recently sworn in for a second term after he was re-elected with 85 percent of the vote, described how MS-13 rapidly increased its power.
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He said: “When Bill Clinton decided to deport those guys, he didn’t tell our government at the time, ‘I’m deporting this criminal.’ They just sent them here. They came, they were few, but unchecked. At the same time, some laws were passed to protect minors from imprisonment. Of course, gangs used that to recruit 15-year-olds, 16-year-olds, 17-year-olds.
“At the beginning, it was some youth causing harm, assaulting, trying to control their territory, selling drugs—things that are bad, but probably not critical. But they grew, and they started controlling territories. A few years later, they were actually a huge international criminal organisation with bases in Italy, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and the US. Basically, a lot of major cities in the US have strongholds outside Washington, DC.”
He claimed that as the gang became more deadly, their actions became “Satanic”. Bukele added: “They grew and started killing more people to get territory, fight against rival gangs, collect debts, or money, or whatever. As the organisation grew, it became Satanic. They started doing Satanic rituals. I don’t know exactly when that started, but it was well-documented.”
President Bukele recounted one chilling story about an ex-gang member who left MS-13 after refusing to participate in the sacrifice of a baby. He said: “I remember a news outlet that made this interview with a gang member in prison. We allowed them to go into prisons and do the interviews. They asked him, ‘How many people have you killed?’ And he said, ‘I don’t remember.’ Then they asked him, ‘What is your position in the gang?’ He explained how he went up in positions. But he left the gang he said.”
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The president said the man was asked why he left the gang, to which he answered: “Well, because I was used to killing people. But I killed for territory. I killed to collect money. I killed for extortion. But I came to this house, and they were about to kill a baby.'”
Bukele added: “And he, the killer, who had killed tens of people, said, ‘Oh, wait, what are we doing? Why are we going to kill that baby?’ And they told him, ‘Because the beast asked for a baby, so we have to give him the baby.’ He couldn’t resist it, so he left the gang. He’s in prison because he’s a killer, but he left the gang because he couldn’t tolerate what he was seeing.”
Bukele noted that MS-13 has also carried out satanic sacrifice rituals in the US. In 2017, two MS-13 gang members killed 15-year-old Genesis Cornejo in a “satanic” ritual. Genesis vanished from her home in Jersey Village, Texas on January 19, 2017. Her body was found on February 16 with gunshot wounds to the face and chest.
Police discovered that she had ended up with MS-13 members Diego Alexander Hernandez-Rivera and Miguel Angel Alvarez-Flores. Authorities said the gang members kidnapped three “young, impressionable” girls, including Genesis, ranging from 14 to 16 years old. The 14-year-old told police they were fed drugs and raped.
She also said that Genesis had been killed in a satanic ritual because she had struck the gang’s shrine to a satanic saint, according to investigators. The teen told police that Alvarez-Flores made a peace offering in the form of a cigarette but that when he returned, he claimed a soul had been demanded.
“He returned from the statue and told the entire group that the beast did not want a material offering but wanted a soul,” state District Judge Maria Jackson said. The gang members pleaded guilty to murder and were each sentenced to 40 years behind bars in 2021.
Bukele, who has called himself ” the world’s cooled dictator”, has led a crackdown on gang crime which drove down the country’s murder rate. His presidency has seen El Salvador go from one of the most violent countries in the world to one of the safest in Latin America.
