Police director and fugitive banker among 9 killed in military helicopter crash in El Salvador

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El Salvador’s military says the national police director, other high-ranking police officials and a fugitive banker were among nine people killed in a military helicopter crash in a rural part of the country.

The cause of the crash on Sunday night is under investigation. It occurred after the banker, Manuel Coto, was captured in Honduras over the weekend and handed over to Salvadoran authorities at the border.

Coto, the former manager of the COSAVI savings and loan cooperative, had been the subject of an Interpol arrest warrant and one of 32 people implicated in the embezzlement of more than $35 million by the cooperative’s directors and employees.

Coto was arrested Sunday while “driving with a human trafficker to the United States,” according to Honduran Security Minister Gustavo Sanchez.

El Salvador’s military in a post on social media said the air force helicopter crash occurred in the area of San Eduardo, Pasaquina, La Union. It said the director general of the National Civil Police, Mauricio Arriaza Chicas, was aboard.

This aerial view shows the wreckage of the military helicopter that crashed on the eve in Pasaquina, El Salvador, on September 9, 2024.

MARVIN RECINOS/AFP via Getty Images

The state-run Canal 10 TV channel said David Cruz, the head of communications for El Salvador’s security ministry, was also killed in the crash. Others on board the Salvadoran Air Force UH-1H helicopter were two high-ranking commissioners, a corporal, a sergeant and two lieutenant pilots, according to officials and the defense ministry.

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said in a post on X that “what happened cannot remain as a simple ‘accident’” and must be investigated thoroughly “and to the ultimate consequences. We will request international help.”

Bukele noted that Arriaza Chicas had led the government’s fight against the gangs that once dominated daily life for much of the Salvadoran population. Bukele’s harsh crackdown on the gangs and mass arrests of more than 80,000 people with little due process have been condemned by human rights organizations.

“Your legacy will remain forever in our minds, your tireless dedication to the transformation of this country will live in the hearts of thousands of Salvadorans,” Bukele wrote on social media.

Security specialist Luis Contreras said it was unlikely Arriaza Chicas’ death would negatively impact the war against the gangs, which the government claims it has all but eliminated.

“In El Salvador there are many experienced people and police commissioners who could replace the late director,” Contreras said.

Contreras maintained that the gangs no longer have the capacity to react. “Crime is not eliminated, but rather neutralized,” he said. “The neutralization El Salvador’s government has achieved against the gangs has been almost 90%.”

Bukele ordered flags to fly at half-staff Monday in remembrance of Arriaza Chicas, whom he described as a “national hero.”

“All flags, throughout the national territory, as well as in our embassies and consulates, will fly at half-staff for three days in honor of the director of the National Civil Police,” Bukele said on social media.

Meanwhile, the bodies of the victims were taken to the capital in a caravan guarded by police.

Bukele’s crackdown on gangs has drawn criticism from rights groups but has won him sky-high approval ratings.

Supporters credit him with returning a sense of normality to a violence-fatigued society.

The country last year recorded its lowest homicide rate in three decades, turning it from one of Latin America’s deadliest countries into one of its safest.

But it has come at a cost.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have reported the killing and torture of detainees, and thousands of innocent people — including minors — among those arrested.

As of February of this year, more than 78,000 arbitrary detentions have been registered leading to prison overcrowding of approximately 148%, with at least 235 deaths in state custody, according to Amnesty International. The organization also reported 327 enforced disappearances.

AFP contributed to this report.