Drug murders

Not all of the recent wave of murders in El Salvador is linked to gang activity. The trafficking of drugs through the country can also lead to violent deaths as this article in the Latin American Herald Tribune demonstrates:

A man suspected of being a drug trafficker and informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and two men accompanying him were gunned down by unidentified individuals, El Salvador’s National Civilian Police, or PNC, said Sunday.

Edwin Reynaldo Argueta was pulled out of a local nightspot where he and four friends – two of whom were also murdered – were enjoying themselves, a PNC spokesman said.

All the victims had gunshot wounds, the police spokesman said, adding that the other two men who had been with Argueta survived the attack.

The spokesman said that the case had been handed over to the Homicide Investigation Division.

The gunmen who killed the 37-year-old Argueta are linked to the Coyote cartel, which operates out of Guatemala and has connections with a Salvadoran gang known as “Los Perrones,” La Prensa Grafica newspaper reported.

In a report in today's LPG, Salvadoran law enforcement officials denied that Argueta was a DEA informant.

The need to track down on crimes linked to the drug trade, was one of the areas covered in Massachusetts Congressman James McGovern's letter to Mauricio Funes earlier this year.