The Public Face of MS-13: An In-Depth Look at Leader Borromeo Enrique Henríquez Solórzano

On June 3, 1998, the Juzgado Primero de Instrucción, or First Court of Instruction, in the small Salvadoran municipality of Soyapango, convicted Borromeo Enrique Henríquez Solórzano to 30 years in prison for the double homicide of Roberto Carlos Hernandez and José Virgilio Gonzalez (Diario Oficial, October 3, 2005). At the time, officials in El Salvador only knew that Solórzano was a member of the feared Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13 gang, created on the streets of Los Angeles in the 1980s by Salvadoran immigrants fleeing the civil war in their country. While Solórzano has been languishing in prison for over a decade, he has risen to become the nominal leader of MS-13 and today the Salvadoran National Civilian Police (Policía Nacional Civil, PNC) publicly acknowledge that Solórzano sits atop the leadership of MS-13 and continues to make decisions on kidnappings, assassinations, extortions and large-scale gang activity from his prison cell (Elfaro.net [San Salvador], August 8). Though Solórzano has become the public face of MS-13, his power in this position is questionable given the complex structure of MS-13. Solórzano fervently denies that he is the gang's leader and has declared that he is merely been given his role by the media, but in reality he cannot make any decisions without "taking into account the voice of all his people…" (Elfaro.net [San Salvador], October 8).