Under President Nayib Bukele, El Salvador has become a popular exemplar for fighting organized crime in Latin America. And throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, leaders are attempting to follow the Bukele playbook.
In a few short years, Bukele managed to overpower the country’s gangs, the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) and Barrio 18. His success stems from near-complete control of the Salvadoran government, which allowed him to implement emergency powers suspending many constitutional rights. Salvadoran security forces have arrested tens of thousands of alleged gang members and pushed them into overcrowded prisons with severely restrictive conditions. Mass trials have handed down sentences amounting to thousands of years.
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Latin American leaders have been watching. More than 15 megaprisons have been proposed throughout the region in the three years since El Salvador opened the doors to its famous Terrorism Confinement Center (Centro de Confinamiento de Terrorismo – CECOT). Between April 2020 and April 2023, at least 30 states of emergency were declared in the region. In Argentina, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, Honduras, and Peru, rhetoric echoing—and sometimes directly referring to—Bukele’s mano dura (iron fist) hardline measures has dominated recent political campaigns.
But despite emulating El Salvador’s approach, no other country has managed to replicate its results.
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Explore our coverage analyzing how El Salvador was able to repress its gangs and why attempts by other countries in the region have failed.
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Learn more about the Salvadoran gangs overpowered by Bukele’s mano dura measures.
Don’t miss the rest of the Summer InSights 2026 series
This is the fourth and final chapter of Summer InSights 2026. For more on how Bukele’s anti-crime tactics have influenced the fight against organized crime in the region, as well as additional context on the other three topics from Summer InSights 2026, check out the special collection of articles we have curated for donors.
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