What Is CECOT: The El Salvador Megaprison Ruth López Investigated Before Her Own Arrest

What Is CECOT?

The Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) is the maximum-security megaprison the government of Nayib Bukele opened on February 1, 2023, in Tecoluca, San Vicente department. With a reported capacity of 40,000 inmates, the government presents it as the largest prison in Latin America and as the central symbol of its security strategy under the state of exception, in effect in the country since March 2022.

CECOT has been extensively photographed and promoted in government communication campaigns: collective cells with no mattresses, tattooed inmates lined up in rows, zero family visits, zero media access. The government itself describes it as a place from which "no one leaves."

Ruth López's Investigation Into CECOT

Months before her own arrest, Ruth Eleonora López Alfaro, then head of Cristosal's Anti-Corruption Unit, investigated the real cost of building CECOT. Her work documented massive cost overruns, irreparable environmental damage in the Tecoluca area, and systematic irregularities in public procurement processes — evidence that, behind the security propaganda, a pattern of corruption ran through one of the government's flagship projects.

This was not an isolated case in her career: Ruth also led audits of public fund use during the pandemic and irregularities in the implementation of the Bitcoin Law. Investigating the government's most publicized projects was, precisely, the work that made her a target.

The 252 Transferred Without Due Process — and Ruth's Habeas Corpus Filings

In March 2025, an agreement between the Trump administration and the Bukele government resulted in the transfer of 252 Venezuelans and Salvadorans to CECOT, deported from the United States without due process or the ability to challenge their immigration or criminal status before a judge. Human rights organizations described the transfer as a collective forced disappearance: for weeks, none of their families or lawyers could confirm their whereabouts or condition.

Ruth López was one of the few Salvadoran lawyers willing to legally challenge this. She filed more than 100 habeas corpus petitions demanding the State disclose the legal status and whereabouts of those transferred. Shortly after that work, on May 18, 2025, she was arbitrarily detained at her own home.

Conditions Inside CECOT

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and UN rapporteurs have consistently documented:

• Total incommunicado conditions: those held at CECOT have no access to phone calls, family visits, or, in most cases, a lawyer of their choosing.
• Absence of due process for people transferred under agreements like the March 2025 deal, with no prior judicial hearing in El Salvador.
• Overcrowding and detention conditions that international bodies have described as potentially amounting to cruel and inhuman treatment.
• No independent access: neither the UN nor the IACHR have been authorized to conduct independent inspections of the facility.

These conditions are not exceptional within El Salvador's prison system as a whole: the state of exception has left at least 189 documented deaths in custody between 2022 and 2025 across the country's penitentiary system, according to Cristosal, FESPAD, and IDHUCA.

Is Ruth López Held at CECOT?

No. It's important to be precise: Ruth López is not held at CECOT. Since July 4, 2025, she has remained at the Izalco Women's Penitentiary Center, also in total incommunicado detention, without visits from her family or lawyers, despite the precautionary measures the IACHR ordered in September 2025.

Ruth's connection to CECOT is not that she is imprisoned there, but that she investigated its construction as an anti-corruption lawyer and legally challenged the transfers to that facility shortly before becoming a prisoner of conscience herself under the same system she had documented.

What You Can Do

CECOT is the most visible face of the state of exception, but the pattern of opacity and lack of due process Ruth investigated and denounced is the same one that keeps her detained today.

• Sign the petition on Avaaz demanding Ruth López's immediate release.
• Read the full context of El Salvador's state of exception: decree, extensions, and statistics.
• Learn about the other political prisoners in El Salvador held under the same system.
• Share this article so more people understand why investigating government corruption carries such a high cost in El Salvador.