What we know about the El Salvador ‘mega prison’ where Trump is sending alleged Venezuelan gang members

El Salvador’s Cecot mega-prison was notorious long before the Trump administration’s recent decision to deport hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members there.

El Salvador’s Cecot mega-prison was notorious long before the Trump administration’s recent decision to deport hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members there. The Center for Terrorism Confinement, to give it its full name, is considered the largest prison in the Americas – with a capacity of 40,000 inmates – and has been the biggest symbol in the Latin American country’s controversial crackdown on domestic crime. It is now home to some of the country’s most hardened criminals, including mass murderers and gang members billed as the “worst of the worst” and is notorious for the spartan conditions in which they are kept. In a recent visit, CNN’s David Culver and his team described cells “built to hold 80 or so inmates” where men are held for 23.5 hours a day and “the only furniture is tiered metal bunks, with no sheets, pillows or mattresses … an open toilet, a cement basin and plastic bucket for washing and a large jug for drinking water.” Some 10,000 to 20,000 prisoners are currently thought to be housed there, with the most recent arrivals being the 261 people the Trump administration deported from the US over the weekend – 238 of whom it accused of belonging to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and 23 alleged members of the MS-13 gang. El Salvador’s leader Nayib Bukele – a strongman president and self-styled “world’s coolest dictator” – offered to house the US deportees in Cecot as part of an unprecedented deal in which the US will pay $6 million dollars in return. The money will help sustain El Salvador’s penitentiary system, which currently costs $200 million a year.