May 8, 2025 – Los Angeles / San Salvador
Newly unsealed court documents have linked Alejandro Gonzales, a fugitive MS-13 operative, to a growing investigation in California, months after he escaped during a violent ambush on a prison transport convoy in El Salvador.
The fugitive, identified as Alejandro Gonzales, is a suspected senior figure in the Fulton Locos Salvatrucha clique, a faction of MS-13 with active drug distribution channels extending from Central America into the western United States. He had been in Salvadoran custody on a range of serious charges, including narcotics trafficking, firearms violations, and suspected involvement in multiple gang-related murders.
On February 18, 2025, while being transferred between detention facilities near San Miguel, Gonzales was broken out by a group of heavily armed attackers. According to local authorities, the convoy was intercepted in a calculated assault, with the lead and rear escort vehicles quickly disabled. At least one prison officer was injured during the operation, which officials believe may have involved both cartel and gang-affiliated gunmen.
It wasn’t until April, however, that US investigators received a clearer picture of Gonzales’s possible whereabouts. His name appeared in court filings tied to a federal racketeering case underway in California, where a cooperating witness claimed Gonzales had made his way north through Guatemala and Mexico after the escape. The witness also alleged Gonzales was now moving between MS-13-controlled safe houses in Southern California.
US law enforcement has since escalated the search. A senior federal official confirmed that the DEA, FBI, and Homeland Security Investigations are working jointly to locate Gonzales, citing his known connections to cross-border trafficking and his expanding operational influence.
Investigators believe Gonzales views Southern California as a strategic base from which to grow MS-13’s presence nationally. According to sources familiar with the case, he has spoken openly within the organisation about orchestrating what he described as an “invasion” from the south, despite increased pressure under the Trump administration’s latest enforcement initiatives targeting gang activity and border security.
Authorities have offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to Alejandro Gonzales’s capture. He is considered armed and extremely dangerous.
