For a year and a half, between 2012 and the start of 2014, El Salvador suddenly became safer. Gang killings across the country fell by more than 50 percent, and while the FMLN government of Mauricio Funes was generally credited with this development, the reasons behind it were a secret. In February 2012, a small team inside the country’s Ministry of Public Security started clandestine negotiations with representatives of MS-13 and of 18th Street, which had splintered into two rival factions, the Sureños and the Revolucionarios.
