Overview
- Kast toured the high-capacity CECOT facility with his designated security and foreign affairs ministers and was received by Salvadoran security and defense chiefs.
- Following the visit, he met President Nayib Bukele, and both leaders addressed reporters as Bukele offered to share the steps El Salvador took and praised Chile’s strengths.
- El Salvador’s presidency said the two governments will evaluate how elements of the model could fit Chile, signaling readiness for close cooperation.
- Kast said Chile seeks to import effective ideas to confront organized crime, narcotrafficking and terrorism, stressing study and adaptation rather than direct replication.
- CECOT, built under Bukele’s anti-gang crackdown, holds inmates under strict isolation with no visits or rehabilitation programs, and is described as housing up to 40,000 across eight pavilions.