Crime & Justice 2 min read 6h ago · Updated August 24, 2026 at 23:59 UTC

MS-13 Members Admit to Burying 200 in Bukele's Political Heartland

Three MS-13 members testifying under cooperation agreements allege that more than 200 people were tortured, killed, and buried at Finca Suiza in Nuevo Cuscatlán between 2013 and
The admissions were made during a mass trial of 486 alleged MS-13 leaders — one of the largest gang prosecutions in Salvadoran history.
Finca Suiza holds particular political significance as the municipality where President Nayib Bukele began his political career in 2012, though no link between Bukele and the

Three members of the MS-13 gang have admitted, under cooperation agreements with Salvadoran prosecutors, that between 2013 and 2021 they tortured, murdered and buried more than 200 people at a site called Finca Suiza — a wooded area in the municipality of Nuevo Cuscatlán that carries particular resonance in El Salvador's recent political history.

Testimony at a mass trial

The admissions emerged during proceedings against 486 alleged leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) criminal organisation — one of the largest gang prosecutions in the country's history. The three witnesses are testifying under formal cooperation agreements with the Salvadoran prosecution, making their accounts allegations rather than independently verified findings. No denials or counter-claims from the accused are detailed in the available material, and the full scope of the trial's evidence remains unclear.

A site entwined with Bukele's rise

Finca Suiza's significance extends beyond the alleged crimes. It was in Nuevo Cuscatlán that President Nayib Bukele launched his political career in 2012, and the municipality is widely regarded as the cradle of the movement that eventually carried him to the presidency. The alleged use of that same ground as a clandestine burial site spanning nearly a decade places the location at a striking intersection of political and criminal history, though the source material does not suggest any link between Bukele and the alleged conduct.

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Unresolved questions

The precise number of victims, the identities of those allegedly buried, and the full procedural status of the mass trial remain subjects on which the available evidence is incomplete. Whether independent forensic work has been conducted at Finca Suiza to corroborate the witnesses' claims is not established in the material to hand. Similar large-scale organised crime prosecutions across Latin America — such as the ongoing PCC trial in Brazil, where fifty witnesses are due to testify — have illustrated how witness cooperation agreements can be both essential and contested as evidentiary tools. The fracturing of major criminal networks across the region has increasingly driven gang members towards such agreements.

If the testimony is borne out, Finca Suiza would represent one of the most significant clandestine burial sites to emerge from El Salvador's prolonged gang crisis — situated, with grim irony, at the very location where Bukele's anti-gang political identity first took shape.

##MS13 ##ElSalvador ##NayibBukele ##OrganisedCrime

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