San Salvador, El Salvador
CNN
—
Gang tattoos were once a vital currency in El Salvador, just a few years ago when it was known as the “murder capital of the world.”
Some designs confirmed membership of MS-13 or 18th Street —ultra-violent street organizations that ruled with machetes and intimidation — and commemorated slain gang members while issuing warnings to the living.
Now, under the strict rule of President Nayib Bukele, suspected gang tattoos can be used as evidence of membership in an illegal organization, and lead to detention. Intelligence on those tattoos has also been shared by El Salvador with European countries dealing with gangs, and with the United States, where on Monday Bukele is set for a White House meeting with President Donald Trump.
Tattoos have been used as evidence to deport people from the US and while there are accusations the designs have been misread, El Salvador’s Security and Justice Minister Gustavo Villatoro said he could identify very specific meanings.
“We learn how to understand, how to give interpretation to each tattoo,” Villatoro said in an exclusive interview with CNN. Gangs have been a personal project for him in his work for 20 years. He even has a book with photographs and analysis of hundreds of different markings. “We know the importance for them to identify their members by the tattoos. If you are not a member, you are not able to use any tattoo.”
Inside the Cecot supermax prison, its director Belarmino García told CNN that tattoos had been a key way to identify suspects.
“In the past, they had to kill someone, kidnap someone, extort someone to be brought to trial. Now, having tattoos for these organizations is a crime,” García explained.
Evidence of that crime is all around him, in the communal cells where convicted men and those still going through the court process are held.
Cecot was built and opened after Bukele suspended some constitutional rights as he vowed to restore security to El Salvador. Critics say human rights have been forgotten in the mass roundup of men said to be gangsters, with innocents swept up in the dragnet, but the streets are undoubtedly more secure, and many residents say they have new freedom.
The men taken off those streets and put in Cecot — officially named the Terrorism Confinement Center — now stare at visitors from behind bars, meekly obeying orders from armed guards.
CNN has been inside twice, the only major news organization to have been allowed such access.
Both times we have seen former sworn enemies from MS-13 and 18th Street placed together in cells. In former times, their tattoos would have been enough for a turf war, now they are bunkmates.
“We’re mixed up, and that’s the hardest thing,” Hector Hernandez, a prisoner, told us. “It used to be different, but today the government has taken control.”
His tattoos showed him to be an active member of MS-13, a status he said was still valid, even inside Cecot. He said each design had to be earned, mainly through murder.
“The main thing is to kill and deserve to be a gang member.”
The ink covers some faces, necks, arms and torsos, but García says law enforcement knows there are “very specific” marks that point to gang affiliation and not something innocent.
He had two men remove their prison-issue plain white T-shirts as he explained the new regulations.
“This isn’t a hunt just because a person has tattoos,” he said. “Authorities are searching for members of terrorist organizations who have specific tattoos that identify them with that type of organization.”
The clearest are the letters and numbers from the gang names: MS with 13 in regular or Roman numerals, or 18 for their rivals in the 18th Street gang.
García pointed to the body of a man he said was a clique leader of MS-13 who had been convicted for aggravated homicide.
“He has various tattoos on his body related to MS-13. He is an active member,” García said.
On the man’s back was a large design of Santa Muerte, a female Grim Reaper that became a symbol of the Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico before becoming adopted by MS-13.
García said the other man was an assassin for 18th Street. He had X, V, III running down one side of his torso. Both inmates confirmed their associations with various cliques and areas where they operated.
García said some symbols he had seen warned people to see nothing, hear nothing and do nothing against the gangs, while others commemorated dead comrades or other personal connections: “Women they love, women who’ve betrayed them.”
Tattoos honoring Real Madrid and depicting a hummingbird
Once Bukele’s regime started retaking control of the streets and locking up people with tattoos, the gangs stopped requiring inked bodies as proof of loyalty, García said, so law enforcement focused on other ways to identify criminals.
But elsewhere, tattoos are still seen as evidence of guilt.
Authorities in the United States have deported hundreds of Venezuelans accused of being part of the Tren de Aragua gang, as well as Salvadorans alleged to be MS-13, to El Salvador, where they are now being held in Cecot.
They include Jerce Reyes, a former professional soccer player from Venezuela, said to have a tattoo of a crown over a soccer ball to represent his favorite team, Real Madrid. It’s that crown that caused suspicion, his lawyer Linette Tobin contended in a court affidavit reviewed by CNN.
US law enforcement, including the Texas Department of Public Safety, have identified crown tattoos as potential indications of Tren de Aragua membership, though the Department of Homeland Security would not confirm to CNN which of Reyes’ tattoos incriminated him.
“Jerce Reyes Barrios was not only in the United States illegally, but he has tattoos that are consistent with those indicating TdA gang membership,” a senior DHS official told CNN via email for a story last month. “His own social media indicates he is a member of the vicious TdA gang. That all said, DHS intelligence assessments go beyond a single tattoo, and we are confident in our findings.”
CNN was not able to verify which social media post indicated his supposed membership in Tren de Aragua.
Relatives of other men say they have seen their loved ones in videos of the deportees in Cecot. Some said they could identify the men through their tattoos but insisted they had nothing to do with gangs. Arturo Suarez Trejo, a Venezuelan singer, has a hummingbird inked on his neck, his brother Nelson told CNN.
“My brother has tattoos because he’s an artist but that doesn’t make him a criminal,” Nelson said.
From gang allegiance to art
In El Salvador, where tattoos were once so closely tied to criminals, body ink artists told CNN their business was picking up, but not for gang iconography.
Alejandra Angel, a tattooist in the capital San Salvador, explained: “Never in the history of this country would you see a guy with tattoos working in a restaurant or in a Walmart, never.
“After they ‘cleaned up’ the country everything has changed (with) the visibility of tattoos.”
Angel said she had been a little nervous when the ongoing “temporary” state of emergency was first imposed in March 2022. One of her arms is blacked out, she says to cover designs she no longer liked, but it could appear suspicious to police.
Another artist, Camilo Rodriguez, from a different salon, said he had been questioned twice by police about his tattoos at the beginning of the crackdown. But once he explained their significance he said he was free to go.
They said the gangs used to have their own tattooists or coerced people to ink designs.
But now people are free to choose, the artists said, and are no longer afraid of having something on their arm.
“Tattoos are for everyone,” said Rodriguez, who added his clients now included doctors and lawyers. “It’s a very personal language, and you can do whatever you want with it.”
CNN’s Stefano Pozzebon, Max Saltman and Michael Rios contributed to this story.