Arturo Suarez Recounts Horrific Conditions Inside El Salvador’s Mega-Prison. Arturo Suarez, a 34-year-old aspiring singer, was arrested by U.S. immigration authorities in March while filming a music video in North Carolina. Despite having no criminal record in any of the four countries he had lived in, he was accused of being part of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, based solely on his appearance — specifically, his 33 tattoos.
As part of a Trump-era immigration crackdown that targeted suspected gang members, Suarez was one of 250 Venezuelan men deported to El Salvador, where he was sent to the notorious Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT). Opened in 2023 by President Nayib Bukele’s government, the CECOT facility is the largest maximum-security prison in Latin America, capable of holding up to 40,000 inmates.
Though described by the government as a model of security, it has been widely criticized for its extreme and inhumane…
