Federal prosecutors on LI have moved to drop criminal charges against 2 high-ranking MS-13 leaders, court papers show

Federal prosecutors on Long Island announced charges in 2023 and 2024 against alleged high-ranking MS-13 gang leaders Cesar Humberto Lopez-Larios and Vladimir Antonio Arevalo-Chavez,  with news releases touting multi-count indictments and statements from officials at the nation's highest levels of law enforcement.

"The defendant will soon face a reckoning in a federal courtroom on Long Island where, acting on his orders, MS-13 has spilled so much blood and turned communities into war zones," then-U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District Breon Peace said when Lopez-Larios was arrested by the FBI last year in Texas.

Then-Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, in a 2023 statement following the arrest in Mexico of Arevalo-Chavez, said: "The Justice Department will continue to use the full force of our law enforcement authorities to disrupt and dismantle MS-13 and other transnational criminal organizations and hold their leaders accountable."

But fast forward to 2025, and federal prosecutors on Long Island have moved to drop the cases, which confounded even the defense attorneys on the cases.

The New York Times and The New Yorker, in a pair of recent stories, reported that the highly unusual moves by federal prosecutors to abandon the prosecutions were part of an agreement between President Donald Trump and El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele, who had allegedly pushed for the return of some MS-13 gang members to advance himself politically. The outlets reported that federal prosecutors in the United States had evidence indicating that Bukele advocated for some high-ranking MS-13 defendants in the United States to return to El Salvador as part of a corrupt agreement between the gang, which agreed to decrease the gang's violence and boost Bukele politically in exchange for perks in Salvadoran prisons for their members.

A spokesman for Eastern District of New York prosecutors, which got indictments on both defendants and then moved to drop them, declined to comment to Newsday.

Prosecutors moved to secretly drop the indictment against Lopez-Larios on March 11, filing the request to U.S. District Judge Joan M. Azrack under seal.

"Due to geopolitical and national security concerns of the United States, and the sovereign authority of the Executive Branch in international affairs, the United States is dismissing the indictment against the defendant without prejudice, so that El Salvador can proceed first with its criminal charges against the defendant under Salvadoran law," then-U. S. Attorney John J. Durham wrote to the judge.

The since-unsealed letter added: "The government respectfully requests that this letter be kept under seal given significant operational concerns, including the safety of the officers transferring the defendant. Further, public disclosure of this motion before that date could cause harm to the government’s relationship with a foreign ally."

Lopez-Larios, who was named in court documents as a founding member of MS-13's high ranking leadership body called "Twelve Apostles of the Devil," was charged with conspiracy to provide support and resources to terrorists, conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, conspiracy to finance terrorism and narco-terrorism conspiracy.

Lopez-Larios, 45, later joined the "Ranfla Nacional," the gang's so-called board of directors, where he helped construct a formal hierarchy to manage gang activities and oversaw the expansion of MS-13 globally, prosecutors have said. Prosecutors said the group directed gang members to commit murders, attempted murders, assaults, kidnappings, drug trafficking, extortion of individuals and businesses, and obstruction of justice, in the United States, including on Long Island. More than 70 MS-13 killings have been prosecuted federally on Long Island between 2009 and 2024, prosecutors have said.

In public statements, federal prosecutors had described Lopez-Larios as negotiating with the Salvadoran government.

"Beginning in approximately 2012, Lopez-Larios and other members of the Ranfla Nacional negotiated with officials from the government of El Salvador (GOES) to obtain benefits and concessions from the government," prosecutors wrote. "In order to extort those benefits and concessions, MS-13 engaged in public displays of violence to threaten and intimidate civilian populations, target GOES law enforcement and military officials, and manipulate the electoral process in El Salvador."

The charges were dropped and Lopez-Larios was deported to a Salvadoran prison, The Times has reported. His attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

Arevalo-Chavez's lawyers are trying to prevent their client from facing the same fate.

In an April 30 letter to Azrack, Arevalo-Chavez's attorney, Thomas Nooter, opposed the government's move to deport his client back to El Salvador.

He wrote that the government's claim of "geopolitical and national security concerns appear to be an effort by the government to support a 'deal' with El Salvador to assist Bukele in suppressing the truth about a secret negotiation he had with MS-13 leaders in return for our government using El Salvador prisons, including the infamous 'CECOT' terrorism prison, for removal of gang members without giving them due process of law."

Prosecutors had charged Arevalo-Chavez, 47, also known as "Vampiro de Monserrat Criminales" with racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to provide or conceal material support to terrorists and narco-terrorism conspiracy.

Arevalo-Chavez, along with other MS-13 leaders, allegedly coordinated MS-13’s expansion into Mexico at the direction of the Ranfla Nacional, which included forging alliances with Mexican cartels to engage in crimes such as narcotics trafficking, immigrant smuggling and extortion, kidnappings, and weapons trafficking. U.S. bound migrants, including suspected members of the rival 18th Street gang and MS-13 members attempting to leave El Salvador without permission, were killed by the gang in Mexico, prosecutors said.

As of mid-June, Arevalo-Chavez's lawyers were still fighting against prosecutors "to ensure that Mr. Arevalo-Chavez receives due process in the removal process and is not simply shipped off to El Salvador to face likely torture and possible death," they wrote in a letter to the court.

Federal prosecutors, in a June 23 response, voiced frustration that "the government's motion to dismiss has been pending for more than 10 weeks" and called the defense's intention to seek immigration relief "not relevant" to the proceedings.

"Defendants are not entitled to tread water on the criminal docket while they explore potential avenues to thwart removal proceedings in immigration court," prosecutors wrote.