Old Lin, the historic leader and founder of the Barrio 18 gang who died in a Salvadoran prison

Carlos Ernesto Mojica Lettuceknown as “Old Lin” and considered one of the main historical leaders of the gang Neighborhood 18 In El Salvador, he died on the night of May 20 while in the custody of the Salvadoran prison system, the country’s authorities reported.

The Frequent Directorate of Penal Centers (DGCP) indicated that Mojica died as a result of multiple organ failure caused by liver complications, after several years facing serious health problems. According to the official report, he suffered from liver cirrhosis, hepatorenal syndrome and an apparently aggressive brain tumor, a condition that worsened after suffering severe digestive bleeding.

Mojica Lechuga, 63, was identified for decades as one of the founders and main leaders of the Sureños faction of the Barrio 18 gangaccording to the newspaper La Huella.

Authorities linked him to homicides, extortion, rape and forced recruitment of minors during the 1990s and 2000s, a period marked by the rise of gangs in the Central American country.

According to the El Comercio site, his name achieved public notoriety in 2012, when He participated as spokesperson for Barrio 18 during the so-called truce between gangs promoted in the government of then president Mauricio Funes.

At that stage, leaders of criminal structures held public appearances and promoted messages related to the reduction of homicides in the country.

According to court records, “Old Lin” was serving sentences totaling several decades in prison after being found guilty of various crimes.

His death occurs in the midst of the state offensive against gangs developed by the president’s government. Nayib Bukele from 2022, under the exception regime in force in the country.

With the death of Mojica Lechuga, one of the most emblematic and controversial figures in the recent history of Salvadoran gangs disappears, whose influence marked part of the prison violence that affected El Salvador for more than two decades.

Keep reading:
– Barrio 18, the violent gang behind the riot in three prisons and the murder of 10 police officers in Guatemala.
– Who is “Lobo”, the leader of the Barrio 18 gang who orders crimes from a prison in Guatemala.