HomeNewsBriefKey Witness in El Salvador Case Says He Bribed Judges
BRIEF

Key Witness in El Salvador Case Says He Bribed Judges

EL SALVADOR / 8 MAY 2013 BY MARGUERITE CAWLEY EN

The key witness against the alleged Central American drug trafficker known as "Repollo" says he bribed El Salvador judges to drop drug trafficking charges before turning state witness. The case highlights the corruption that has hindered organized crime prosecutions in that country.

The witness, referred to as "Omega" by La Prensa Grafica and is not otherwise identified, was arrested in El Salvador in 2011 while attempting to sell a kilo of cocaine allegedly belonging to Jorge Ulloa Sibrian, alias "Repollo." Repollo stands accused of trafficking close to 10 tons of cocaine.

Omega's case was tried in a San Salvador court, where his charges were lowered from drug trafficking to possession, and later passed to a court in San Juan Opico, where the charges were dropped altogether. In February 2013, an appeals court overturned the dismisal and sentenced Omega to three years in prison on possession charges, the newspaper reports.  

After the ruling, Omega began to cooperate with the authorities in the Repollo case and his custodial sentence was changed to community service and a fine.

During his testimony, Omega stated that he had bribed two judges to obtain his release in 2011. He allegedly paid $5,000 to San Salvador Judge Ana Lorena Rodriguez, $10,000 to San Juan Opico Judge David Amael Moran Ascencio, and another $5,000 to the case prosecutor. 

The two judges implicated have denied the claims, though the prosecutor Moran -- who was linked to a 2010 fraud case -- said that he had been offered money.

InSight Crime Analysis

Claims of judicial corruption are not novel in a country where an estimated 80 percent of judges are under investigation for irregular activities. But the Repollo case carries some extra weight because of the size of the target and the very public recriminations that may be forthcoming.

As InSight Crime has noted, Repollo's network stretched across Central America, and into Colombia and Mexico. It has already ensnared politicians and now judges, and may create more waves in the weeks to come.

As these official connections to organized crime become public, the case could become a litmus test for El Salvador's judicial system to see if it has the ability (and the stomach) to prosecute high level criminals who can implicate high level government personnel, and whether new criminal investigations will result from these claims.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

COLOMBIA / 28 JUL 2023

Three cases in recent weeks highlight how Colombian groups continue to dominate loansharking schemes across Central and South America…

EL SALVADOR / 15 JUN 2022

The MS13 gang and the Pentecostal Church are two worlds seemingly at odds. One man, known as Elvis, has a…

BARRIO 18 / 9 FEB 2023

In El Salvador, crackdowns have led to rapid improvements in security. But there is real doubt about whether gangs are…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…