Narciso “Chicho” Ramírez, former mayor of San Francisco Menéndez, in Ahuachapán, was sentenced on Thursday, June 1, to 30 years in prison for illegal human trafficking, illegal groups, and illegal possession and carrying of firearms. Together with Ramírez, 22 other people were sentenced who together with him formed a gang of human trafficking (coyotes) that charged their victims to transport them irregularly to the United States.
The sentence was imposed by the Santa Ana Specialized Sentencing Court, which found the former mayor and the gang of people traffickers he led guilty.
The Attorney General of the Republic assured that Ramírez was one of the leaders of this “complex” gang of coyotes that began to be investigated in 2018. The prosecutor who led the prosecution in court said that the members of the structure had different functions. “Some directed, others were the promoters of illegal trips to the United States, others did coordination work for the transfer and shelter. The collaborators carried out tasks of monitoring the police presence and others were the guides to transfer them to blind spots on the border in the west of the country, “he said.
In total, the Prosecutor’s Office managed to identify 44 victims of the “Chicho” Ramírez trafficking gang, among them minors, of Honduran, Guatemalan and Nicaraguan nationality, who were deceived by this structure and who came to pay between $5,000 and $17,000. per trip.
Ramírez was mayor of San Francisco Menéndez in four terms, between 2006 and 2018, under the banner of different political parties, such as PDC, Arena and GANA. The former mayor was even investigated and accused of the same crime of human trafficking in 2002, before becoming involved in politics, but he was acquitted of the charges.
While mayor, in 2010, he was the main actor in a shootout in which he was seriously injured and was hospitalized, and in which one of his bodyguards, the Guatemalan businessman Pedro Crespín, and his bodyguard died. On that occasion, the former mayor had no legal consequences either.
Another of the leaders of the former mayor’s gang is Pedro Alfonso Aguirre Rivas, who received the strongest sentence, 76 years in prison. While Wilfredo Alejandro Castro Morán was sentenced to 50 years in prison. Both for the same crimes as “Chicho” Ramírez.
The Prosecutor’s Office reported that other convicted persons were Walter Otoniel Aguirre Rivas, 49 years in prison; José Rutilio Martínez, 47 years old; Eber Ricardo Gómez, 43 years old; Ronaldo Iván Sánchez Pérez, 41 years old; Erick Adalid Silva Ramírez, 39 years old; Sara Beatriz López de Aguirre, 25 years old; Cora Maritza Alas, Mileydi Maricies Menéndez Salinas and Brenda Roxana Caishpal Valencia, 23 years old; and José Oliberto Martínez Castro, Raúl Humberto Alas Arévalo and William Ernesto Carrillo García, 21 years old.
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