EL SALVADOR

Tackling crime in El Salvador

El Salvador is located between North and South America with a coast on the Pacific Ocean. This strategic geography makes El Salvador attractive to organized crime groups wanting to link drug producers with drug consumers using land, air and maritime trafficking routes.

The main crime challenges El Salvador law enforcement faces include drug trafficking, money laundering, and trafficking in firearms, people and counterfeit goods and criminal gangs.

With regional organized crime networks invariably operating on a global level, the role of INTERPOL’s National Central Bureau (NCB) in El Salvador is crucial to safeguarding national and regional security.

INTERPOL in El Salvador

The San Salvador NCB is part of the Policia Nacional Civil (PNC), which is the national police force. It is an operational unit, meaning NCB police staff can exercise police power across the country on behalf of the national police, including the power of arrest.

The NCB conducts regional and global crime analysis in cooperation with NCBs worldwide, sharing intelligence on emerging land, sea and air trafficking routes, production zones, transportation and concealment methods, particularly as it relates to organized crime which could affect El Salvador.

By providing globally-sourced intelligence about regional crime, the NCB helps police officers across the country to detect and investigate the flow of illicit goods along trafficking routes in and around the country. It plays a central role in preventing the country and surrounding region from serving international organized crime.

Law enforcement in El Salvador

The PNC is part of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security. It is responsible for national security, law and order, and national criminal police investigations.