An In-Depth Look at M18 Leader Carlos Ernesto Mojica Lechuga
An In-Depth Look at M18 Leader Carlos Ernesto Mojica Lechuga
Carlos Ernesto Mojica Lechuga maintains an unassuming presence; thin and balding, his only noticeable oddity is a tattoo on his forehead that reads “In memory of my mother.” Beneath this exterior, however, is one of the most notorious criminals in all of El Salvador and the leader of the deadly 18th Street gang (a.k.a. M18) (Elfaro.net, October 27, 2011). Lechuga has been incarcerated for most of his adult life in El Salvador’s notorious prison system, though he fought in the Salvadoran civil war (1980-1992) and participated in widespread gang activity in the United States. Today, Lechuga is considered the most dangerous and well known prisoner in all of El Salvador because he has been able to maintain his power atop M18 from prison and over the past several decades has ordered extortions, assassinations, thefts and assaults from his prison cell. The Salvadoran government, the people of El Salvador and the majority of gang members in Central America realize that Lechuga is the leader of the largest gang in the region and any gang truce or regional progress will likely start and end with Lechuga.
Background
According to the Salvadoran National Civilian Police (Policía Nacional Civil – PNC), Lechuga was born in Izalco, a small municipality of Sonsonate, El Salvador (Elfaro.net, January 26, 2003). He emigrated to the United States as a child and in the 1970s during his teenage years and lived in East Los Angeles, an area rife with gang activity (ElSalvador.com, January 26, 2003). Just a decade earlier in the 1960s, M18 formed in this area due to massive immigration from Mexico. [1] Lechuga became fascinated with the lifestyle of gang members and eventually decided to join the Los Malditos de la Eighteen Street, a now defunct clique of M18 in Los Angeles (Elfaro.net, October 20, 2011). During his teenage years, Lechuga was given his infamous nickname “Lynx” by the Los Malditos, a name which he would later change to “El Viejo Lin” (Old Man Lin) upon returning to El Salvador (Elfaro.net, October 20, 2011).
Although Lechuga was active in the Los Angeles gang scene throughout the 1970s, when the Salvadoran Civil War broke out in 1980 he returned home and joined the Partido Revoluncionario de los Trabajadores Centroamericanos (PRTC, Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers), a leftist political organization fighting for national liberation (ElSalvador.com, January 26, 2003). While active in the PRTC, Lechuga went one step further and became a guerilla in the Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN – Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front), a militant group that fought the Salvadoran government (Elfaro.net, October 20, 2011). Lechuga was eventually captured by the military in February 1981 at the age of 18 and charged with “subversion” (Elfaro.net, October 20, 2011). He was sent to the Mariona prison where he remained a political prisoner until 1982 when the Salvadoran Supreme Court ordered his release (Elfaro.net, October 20, 2011).
Immediately after being released, Lechuga returned to the FMLN and continued fighting against government forces. Lechuga then left El Salvador in 1983 and returned to Los Angeles to reunite with his M18 clique (Elfaro.net, October 20, 2011). For the next few years Lechuga thrived as a leading member of M18 while continuing to make frequent trips back to El Salvador to engage in criminal activity, resulting in multiple arrests and charges. Eventually, on October 12, 1992, Lechuga was charged with murder, for which he received a ten year prison sentence (Elfaro.net, October 20, 2011).
While Lechuga was in prison, M18 emerged in El Salvador and Lechuga built a reputation as a ruthless gang leader, a fierce opponent of Mara Salvatrucha (a.k.a. MS-13) and a shrewd manipulator who had an impressive understanding of domestic politics and leftist political philosophy. Though he was revered by his fellow prisoners, Lechuga became a nuisance for the Salvadoran government and by 2000 he had been transferred to 12 different prisons throughout the country, including some of the most notorious such as San Vicente, San Francisco Gotera and Santa Ana (Elfaro.net, October 20, 2011). The new Ciudad Barrios prison in San Miguel, built largely for M18 gang leaders, opened in 2000 (ElFaro.net, October 20, 2011). Lechuga arrived at the new prison on March 1, 2001. Surrounded by his fellow M18 gang members, Lechuga became emboldened and began issuing commands to assassinate members of MS-13 (Elfaro.net, October 20, 2011).
After completing his ten-year prison sentence on August 2, 2002, Lechuga was released from prison with only one thing on his mind: to create an M18 empire in El Salvador (Elfaro.net, October 20, 2011). The Salvadoran media quickly picked up on his outlandish personality and criminal rap sheet, referring to Lechuga as the leader of M18. By 2003, the government, the media and the citizens of El Salvador knew his name and his reputation and thought of him as a national gang leader (Elfaro.net, October 27, 2011). Much like other gang leaders however, he consistently professed his innocence, stating “No soy líder de la 18” (I am not the leader of the 18) (Diario Co Latino [San Salvador], March 23, 2008).
However, freedom was short lived for Lechuga and within a year he was charged and convicted of “possession of illegal weapons,” which resulted in a five year sentence at the Chalchuapa prison (La Prensa Grafica, January 8, 2010). It was at this facility that Lechuga began to alienate many of his own gang members by initiating internal gang executions to solidify his power over M18 (Elfaro.net, October 20, 2011).
Lechuga was released in 2008 after serving his five-year prison sentence, but was immediately imprisoned again, charged with the January 14, 2003 decapitation of a woman known only as “La Nena” or “The Kid” (Diario Co Latino [San Salvador], March 23, 2008). According to prosecutors, “The Kid” was taken to the roof of the Condominium Freedom where she was killed with machetes, her body dismembered and thrown into the Acelhuate River, south of San Salvador (ElSalvador.com, November 7, 2008). Lechuga was convicted of the murder in December 2008 and sentenced to 40 years at the harshest and most violent prison in El Salvador, Zacatecoluca (La Prensa Grafica [El Salvador], December 16, 2008).
A New Approach
At Zacatecoluca a drastic change occurred to Lechuga, especially after losing his brother and his life partner, Victoria Graciela Campos Landaverde, to gang violence (ElSalvador.com, February 2, 2010; La Prensa Grafica [El Salvador], October 20, 2012). Lechuga officially renounced his affiliation with gang membership, stating:
I have resigned from the gang. I do not want to have anything to do with the gang. The gang is like the devil that badly pays the people who serve it. I am tired of this type of life; it has not given me anything good, only jail (Agence France-Presse, March 5, 2008).
Since making this proclamation, Lechuga has fought rigorously to rebrand his image in the media as a social reformer, focusing on reintegrating gang members back into civil society. He told an interviewer in 2012, “We accept that we are wrong, but we ask the public another opportunity to become citizens who work, pay taxes and go to the park with our children, the movies or the beach” (ElFaro.net, June 10, 2012). Taking this message further, he actually apologized to his victims and their families, telling a Salvadoran reporter: “I apologize for the harm I have done. I cannot undo the damage and revive the dead. But I can make people not die because of us” (ElSalvador.com, March 22, 2012).
Making Temporary Peace with MS-13
Lechuga sat down in March 2012 with his main rival, Borromeo Enrique Henríquez Solórzano, the leader of MS-13, to reach a truce to end the bloodshed between the rival gangs. The negotiations were moderated by military chaplain Fabio Colindres and David Munguia Payes of the Salvadoran Security Ministry (Democracyinamericas.org, May 1, 2012).
The negotiations occurred under the banner of a document presented by the gangs to the government, entitle “Proposed Resolution Framework for the Recovery of Social Peace in El Salvador,” which laid out specific gang negotiation points. The gangs committed to reduce all acts of violence and criminality in exchange for:
· an end to police operations in the communities,
· repeal of the law prohibiting gangs, reforms to the Penal Code and improvement of prison conditions,
· an end to torture and abuses by police during interrogations,
· removal of soldiers from public security deployment,
· pardons for aged and infirm prisoners,
· an end to extermination groups,
· creation of reinsertion programs such as education, training and jobs for those on the outside and relatives of incarcerated members (Democracyinamericas.org, May 1, 2012).
Lechuga and Solórzano offered to suspend homicides, extortion and violence against women, in addition to creating “zones of peace” and handing over thousands of firearms to the government (ElFaro.net, July 13, 2012).
Throughout the peace talks Lechuga spoke about ending the rivalry with MS-13 and the need for more government intervention in the economy to provide, jobs, education and opportunities for reformed gang members (ElSalvador.com, March 22, 2012). He candidly told the government that gang members would not reform if they were not given work and reintegration programs and were not given access to health care and education (ElSalvador.com, March 22, 2012). He also cited international law, claiming that the government had violated international legal treaties by imprisoning gang members in unsatisfactory prisons (ContraPunto.com, October 1, 2012).
Ultimately, the negotiations were a resounding success for both sides. Homicides in El Salvador fell by 53 percent in the weeks following the negotiations and several other gangs, including the Mara Machine, Crazy Look, Mao Mao, La Raza and Disorder Mara joined the truce (Hispano.com, October 4, 2012). As a concession for their cooperation, Lechuga and 29 other leaders of MS-13 and M18 were transferred at the beginning of March, 2012 from the maximum security prison, Zacatecoluca, to lower security prisons where they now have access to visitors (ElFaro.net, March 14, 2012).
Lechuga was transferred to the Centro Penal de Cojutepequel where he has conjugal visits as well as access to cell phones and computers. Lechuga maintains a Twitter account under the name Comandante Viejo LIN. [2] Lechuga is frequently allowed to leave the prison and travel around the country, making inspirational speeches about gang truces (ElSalvador.com, April 26, 2012).
Next Steps and Future Concerns
Although Lechuga has nominally reformed himself, authorities are not entirely convinced of his newfound persona (La Prensa Grafica [El Salvador], January 15). Many in the Salvadoran government believe than Lechuga has only reformed temporarily due to his desire to leave Zacatecoluca prison for better prison conditions and for fear that he might be assassinated by MS-13 members or fellow M18 members, which is possible since the group split into three factions—the Retirees, the Southerners and the Revolutionaries—around 2004 due to internal struggles for power. While Lin is nominally a Southerner, many suspect that he has lost considerable power over the gang and many of his fellow gang members want to kill him for the internal purges he initiated years ago when he ordered the execution of fellow gang members Baby, the Camaracho, the Big Lonely, the Chola and other palabreros (Mid-level leaders) (ElSalvador.com, May, 8, 2012
The concern for the government about the privileges Lechuga has in prison is that if he is not truly reformed, the potential damage he could cause is immeasurable. When Lechuga was imprisoned in more stringent facilities, such as Chalatenango and San Vicente, he organized massive extortion campaigns and ordered executions from his prison cell (ElSalvador.com, November 6, 2008). In fact, while Lechuga was in prison from 1992 to 2008, he was accused of ordering the murders of Rosa M, Milton, Miriam Isabela Martinez, “The Kid” and Jose Antonio Orellana. Lechuga was also accused of running extortion rackets and ordering chaotic theft and assault campaigns throughout El Salvador (ElFaro.net, October 27, 2011). Lechuga was able to direct these large scale crimes during his detainment at the maximum security facilities and it will be easier for him to do the same or more from the lower security prison, Cojutepequel.
Lechuga has assured the Salvadoran government that he is finished with the gang, but whether that is true remains to be seen. There is a possibility that Lechuga will be released before his 40-year sentence is completed, as his case is currently under appeal in the Salvadoran Supreme Court.
Dominic Kalms is an analyst specializing in Middle East and Latin American national security affairs.
Note
1. ”Barrio 18 (M-18),” InSightCrime, Available at: https://www.insightcrime.org/groups-el-salvador/barrio-18.
2. See: https://twitter.com/ElViejoLin.
