Chepe Luna

Like most of his compatriots at the top of the group, Luna got his start in the Salvadoran underworld bringing otherwise licit goods from across the Honduran border. Luna was known for moving dairy goods, which initially earned the Perrones the moniker “Cartel de Los Quesos.”

The logistical skills mastered while moving cheese came in handy when Luna and his colleagues decided to branch out into trafficking a more profitable good: cocaine. The Perrones have links with South American traffickers, who bring their merchandise up the Pacific coast from Colombia and Ecuador, usually in go-fast boats or semi-submersibles. From there, the drugs are offloaded onto Salvadoran vessels, from which they are brought to shore and moved northward to Guatemala along the Perrones’ networks.

Luna has long been in the cross-hairs of the national and international drug enforcement organizations, from the DEA and Interpol to El Salvador’s National Police. Since 2004, he has had an arrest warrant from the Southern District Court in the US hanging over his head, on drug trafficking and money laundering charges. He was arrested in El Salvador in 2002, after an altercation with police. At the time, the US singled him out as one of the foremost human traffickers in the country, yet Salvadoran authorities did not charge him of the crime, and he was later released.

He was arrested most recently in August 2012, this time in Honduras where he is believed to be running the Perrones from. However, he was released a day after his capture, reportedly due the expiration of an arrest warrant against him in the country.

Resources

"Organzed Crime in El Salvador: the Homegrown and Transnational Dimensions (pdf)," Doug Farah for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, December 2010.

“Drug Trafficking Organizations in Central America: Transportistas, Mexican Cartels and Maras (pdf),” Steven Dudley for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, May 2010.