Former sub-inspector of the National Civil Police (PNC), Edy Vasquez Rabanales He was deported to Guatemala this Monday, August 5, 2024, where he faces charges for extrajudicial execution and forced disappearance of two people.
Vásquez Rabanales was accused by four agents under his command of allegedly causing the death of the guatemalteco Edin Leonel Choc Xi and of the Canadian Milton Nelson Santamariain April 2024, while they were in police custody in San Andres Itzapa, Chimaltenango.
Authorities confirmed that one of the teams involved in the arrest of the former Guatemalan police officer was the Police Security Alliance against Fugitives (Security Alliance for Freedom and Efficiency, SAFE, en inglés), which works directly with the PNC, with the specialization provided by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
This program aims to improve security and efficiency in migration management and border control.
What is the SAFE program?
The SAFE program was created in 2012 by the Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), a fugitive enforcement and intelligence-sharing program that operates primarily from the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
According to the Office, SAFE’s work allows for “maintaining that interconnection, that coordination, that international exchange of information to ensure that these fugitives who have fled the crimes they have committed are brought to justice.”
The main activities of the program are:
- Use subject information derived from local research resources.
- Manage and use leads within the country to locate, capture, detain and remove individuals residing in the United States illegally, who are subject to foreign arrest warrants.
- SAFE works with law enforcement agencies, immigration authorities, foreign attorneys general, and national identification repositories.
- It works with other regional, national, state and local government agencies in the three Central American countries.
The SAFE program was reinstated in Guatemala in February 2021, the PNC confirmed, with the main objective of locating Guatemalan fugitives in the United States and also in Guatemala.
How SAFE works in coordination with Guatemala
Once the international red alert was activated against the former sub-inspector, the SAFE Alliance maintained communication links, and as established among its functions, exchanged police and immigration information so that the accused could face justice.
SAFE works in coordination with the Department of Investigation of Crimes against Life and Integrity of Persons (DEIC).
Read also: Three opportunities: A Guatemalan mother’s story about a coyote’s offers to pay Q100,000 to reach the U.S.
Its main function, the PNC confirmed, is the exchange of information with U.S. police in order to verify whether those detained in that country, if they are undocumented, have criminal records or pending court orders.
That transfer of information led to a routine check on June 11, 2024, which revealed that there was an arrest warrant in Vásquez Rabanales’ record, Tucson, Arizona, sheriff John Modlin announced at the time.
The former police officer was arrested on June 11 by Border Patrol agents assigned to the Three Points station, south of Sells, a community in Arizona.
6/4: Three Points Station agents arrested Edy Vasquez-Rabanales, a Guatemalan national, south of Sells, AZ.
Records revealed him as a former Guatemalan police officer with an Interpol warrant out of Guatemala for the kidnapping of a person and murder of a Canadian citizen. pic.twitter.com/dOXiFiIHwG
— John R. Modlin (@USBPChiefTCA) June 11, 2024
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