El Salvador’s Attorney General’s Office (FGR) and National Civil Police carried out an operation in the western part of the country on Thursday 6 November 2025 to dismantle a network accused of drug trafficking, trafficking in persons and migrant smuggling.[1] The operation covered different areas of Acajutla, Sonsonate and Ahuachapán, where at least 13 people were detained and seven others had already been arrested earlier as part of the same network.[1] Diario El Mundo reported that the FGR issued 29 detention orders in what the case prosecutor called the Caso Cristal, with the network said to operate from the cantón Garita Palmera, and named the 13 people detained that day.[2]

Authorities said the network brought drugs into El Salvador through blind crossings, unpoliced border points, from Guatemala and then distributed them around the country.[2] The FGR said the investigation ran for a year, between October 2023 and October 2024.[1] In this operation officers seized portions of marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamines valued at more than $1,000, three vehicles, three motorcycles, a firearm and $4,140 in cash, the FGR reported.[1] Diario El Mundo reported that the seven people arrested before the operation were found with 1,361.832 grams of marijuana, 10,004 grams of methamphetamine and 4,514 grams of cocaine, together valued at more than $1,000, along with a firearm, three vehicles, three motorcycles and $4,140.[2]

Prosecutors said several detainees sexually exploited two adolescents aged 15 and 16 for payment, in both Guatemala and El Salvador.[3] The FGR said some of those detained moved migrants who paid to be taken illegally to the United States, among them two Ecuadorians.[3] The detainees were accused of illicit drug trafficking, illegal trafficking of persons, trafficking in persons, illicit association, proposal and conspiracy to commit homicide, and criminal associations, and were to be brought before the courts within days.[3]

ENNewsSV reported that the operation broke up a criminal structure with transnational links in the western part of the country.[4]