The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) managed to have two runners from the Normandie clique of the Mara Salvatrucha sentenced to more than 600 years in prison for aggravated extortion, illicit trafficking and terrorist organizations.
According to the tax source, Franklin Romeo Martínez Hernández, alias Street Soldier, and Julio César Santos Medrano, alias Pitufo, were in charge of ordering and imposing extortion on merchants and businessmen in the city of San Miguel, Usulután, San Francisco Gotera (Morazán) and Santa Rosa De Lima (La Unión), also coordinated the destination of the money they received as a result of the rent.
The two gang members were arrested in 2020, thanks to an investigation led by the FGR between July 2019 and January 2020.
Thanks to the evidence presented by the FGR in the trial, the San Miguel Specialized Sentencing Court determined that Martínez Hernández participated directly in 30 extortions, and sentenced him to a total of 600 years -20 years in prison for each case of extortion-, while Illicit Traffic and Terrorist Organizations, he was sentenced to 15 and 14 years in prison respectively.
In total, the FGR achieved a sentence of 629 years in prison for Martínez Hernández.
While Santos Medrano was found guilty of extorting 29 people, and for these events he received a sentence of 580 years in prison; for illicit trafficking he was sentenced to 15 years in prison and for terrorist organizations, he will spend 14 years in prison. In total, this gang member received a sentence of 609 years in prison.
Among the victims of these two gang members is a businessman from Miguel who gave $600 a week to the Normandie clique of MS 13, from January 2010 to January 2020.
According to tax investigations, the extortions were carried out against merchants and transporters, from the city of San Miguel. The amounts required ranged from $20 to $1,500, deliveries were weekly, biweekly, or monthly.
