Twice Deported Gang Member Wanted For Murder, Re-Arrested In Connecticut

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement press release...

BOSTON. MA - Officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) removed a Salvadoran gang member Friday, who was removed on two prior occasions and is wanted for homicide in his home country. He was turned over to Salvadoran law enforcement authorities upon his arrival in El Salvador.

Hector Edgardo Martinez-Cuellar, 26, from El Salvador, and a member of the transnational criminal street gang known as the “18th Street” gang, was wanted by Salvadoran law enforcement authorities on aggravated homicide and terrorist organization-related charges.

The ERO Boston fugitive operations team arrested him on immigration violations in February in Stratford, Connecticut.

Martinez-Cuellar initially entered the U.S. illegally at the Southern border in 2013. An immigration judge ordered him removed from the U.S. in January 2014, and ICE removed him to El Salvador in March 2014. In August 2015, U.S. Customs and Border Protection arrested Martinez-Cuellar when he tried to illegally reenter the U.S., and in September 2015, ICE removed Martinez-Cuellar again to his home country.

At some point thereafter, he illegally reentered the U.S.

In April 2019, Salvadoran law enforcement authorities issued a warrant on charges of homicide, plus gang-related and other local criminal charges, and ERO officers arrested him in February.

ICE removed him via charter flight to San Salvador, El Salvador, where he was handed over to law enforcement authorities on May 1.