The first 2,000 prisoners alleged to be members of the “maras” joined the “biggest prison in America” ​​on Friday, designed to hold 40,000 inmates, announced El Salvador’s president, Naguib Bukele, who continues the “war” against the organized crime gangs that he declared almost a year ago.

“At dawn, with a single operation, we transferred 2,000 gang members to the Center for the Detention of Terrorism (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, CECOT),” President Bukele said via Twitter.

The giant prison, equipped with advanced technological means of surveillance, was inaugurated in early February.

In a video uploaded by Mr. Bukele under his Twitter account, hundreds of inmates can be seen, wearing only their underwear, with visible tattoos on their bodies — an indication that they belong to the two main gangs in the country, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13 ) and Barrio 18— to be led and lined up, hands on heads, in a prison yard in the western part of the country.

Then, handcuffed, they are taken on buses under heavily armed escort, including army helicopters, to CECOT prison.

“This will be their new home, they will live in it for decades (…), unable to do any more harm to the population,” explained Mr. Bukele.

“Cell by cell, we will eradicate this cancer from society. Know that you will never get out of CECOT, you will pay for what you are… cowardly terrorists,” tweeted the Minister of Justice and Security, Gustavo Villatoro.

The prison was built to house the more than 64,000 gang members behind bars after the state apparatus’s onslaught on them was launched thanks to the exemption regime imposed by parliament at the behest of President Bukele.

Despite criticism from non-governmental human rights organizations for the spate of violations, especially against innocents, the “war” on crime has given the 40-year-old president Bukele enormous popularity in El Salvador.