Gang Member Jailed For 1,310 Years For 33 Murders

A gang member in El Salvador has been jailed for 1,310 years for a life of crime that included 33 murders.

Wilmer Alexander Segovia Tellez poses in undated photo. He was sentenced to 1310 years in prison after he was found guilty of 33 murders and other crimes, in El Salvador, in March, 2023. (@FiscalGeneralSV/Newsflash)

Wilmer Alexander Segovia Tellez was a member of the notorious Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13, which is an international criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s.

He was found guilty of 33 murders and also found guilty by a court in San Salvador. Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado said on Tuesday, 7th March, that Segovia “has been found guilty of having committed 33 homicides, nine times planning to commit murder and various extortions”.

He added: “The gang members who have caused so much pain and tears to the Salvadoran people are never getting out. They will remain locked up until they pay for each of their crimes. We will take care of that.”

Delgado also mentioned another criminal, Miguel Angel Portillo, also part of MS-13. He was sentenced to 945 years in prison by a court in San Miguel, some 140 kilometres (87 miles) from San Salvador, for “22 homicides, four plans to commit murder, an attempted homicide and extortion.”

The sentences come after the Congress of El Salvador approved a harsher sentence against gang members in response to the wave of homicides in the country at the end of March 2022.

El Salvador has one of the highest rates of gang-related violence in the world, with the authorities increasingly trying to crack down on them in the country over the last year.