Deep in the Salvadoran countryside, there is a concrete fortress called SEO, the center for the confinement of terrorism.

It is the largest maximum security prison in the Americas, designed to hold 40,000 of the most violent gang members El Salvador has ever known.

Men covered in MS-13 and Bario 18 tattoos, sentenced to life with no possibility of parole, buried alive in 2×3 me cells for 23 hours a day.

On paper, in a place like this, hope should be dead.

Redemption should be impossible.

God should be the last thing on anyone’s mind.

Yet, something is happening inside those concrete walls that has shocked the guards, stunned the government, and is now spreading across Latin America.

My name is Miguel Anel Dwarte.

They called me Elgato, the cat.

I was MS-13 for 18 years.

I have 13 tattooed across my chest and three kills to my name.

I was sentenced to 90 years in SEO with no hope of ever seeing freedom again.

But then I watched the impossible happen.

A man called Elver Dugo, the executioner, a legendary hitman with 45 confirmed kills, started praying to Jesus and was released by a miracle no lawyer could explain.

His testimony ignited a fire.

Now over 600 hardened criminals inside SECOT have given their lives to Christ.

Violence has dropped by 60% and I am standing here free telling you a story the world needs to hear.

Jesus is walking through the tomb of the living and he is raising the dead.

This is my testimony from MS13 to son of God from the concrete tomb to resurrection.

I am 30 years old and for 18 of those years my only family was the Mara Salvatucha MS13.

I was born in 1995 in one of the poorest barios on the eastern edge of San Salvador, a place where the government barely existed and the gangs were the law.

My mother worked cleaning houses for families in the wealthy neighborhoods, leaving before dawn and coming home after dark exhausted and empty.

My father, I never knew him.

He left before I could walk.

And my mother never spoke about him except to say he was weak and that I should never be like him.

I grew up in a tiny cement block house with a tin roof that leaked when it rained and baked us like an oven in the dry season.

There were five of us, my mother, my two younger sisters, my older brother Carlos, and me.

We shared two rooms and survived on whatever my mother could bring home.

The neighborhood I grew up in was controlled by MS-13.

You could not walk two blocks without seeing their graffiti on the walls.

The number 13 spray painted everywhere, marking territory, warning rivals, reminding everyone who was in charge.

The men with tattoos covering their faces and bodies, walking the streets like they owned them, because they did.

They collected rent from every business, every street vendor, every family.

If you did not pay, you paid in blood.

I saw my first murder when I was 9 years old.

A man who ran a small convenience store refused to pay the rent one week.

Three homeboys walked into his store in broad daylight, shot him in the head in front of his daughter, and walked out like nothing happened.

No police came.

No one called for help.

We all knew the rules.

You did not talk.

You did not see anything.

You survived by staying invisible.

That was my childhood.

Fear, poverty, and the constant presence of the gang.

When I was 12, my older brother Carlos joined MS-13.

He was 16 and he was tired of being poor.

Tired of watching our mother break her back for nothing.

The gang promised him respect, money, protection.

They said he would be part of a family that would never abandon him, that would die for him.

I watched him go through the initiation, the jumpin, where 10 members beat him for 13 seconds while he stood and took it without fighting back or falling down.

He came home that night bruised and bleeding, but he was smiling.

He said he was somebody now.

Within a year, he was dealing drugs, collecting rent, carrying a gun.

He brought money home, bought food, paid for my sister’s school supplies.

My mother cried and begged him to leave the gang, but he would not listen.

He said this was the only way we would survive.

And for a while, it worked.

We ate better.

We had things.

But Carlos also changed.

He became harder, colder, distant.

The gang took more of him every day until there was nothing left of my brother.

just a soldier with dead eyes.

When I turned 12, the same homeboys who jumped in Carlos approached me.

They knew I was his little brother, and they wanted me, too.

At first, I said no.

I had seen what the gang did to Carlos, and I did not want that life.

But the streets did not give you many choices.

A few weeks after I refused, I was walking home from school when three members of Bario 18, the rival gang, stopped me.

They knew I was Carlos’s brother and they wanted to send him a message.

They beat me so badly I could not walk for a week.

Broken ribs, black eyes, blood everywhere.

When Carlos found out, he went to war.

He and his cla hunted down the bario 18 members who touched me and killed two of them.

Then he came to me and said, “You see, little brother, there is no neutral in this war.

Either you are MS-13 or you are prey.

I joined three days later.

My initiation was the same as Carlos’s.

10 homeboys in a circle.

13 seconds of fists and boots.

No crying, no begging, no falling.

I took the beating, and when it was over, they lifted me up, hugged me, called me homeboy, called me family.

I was 13 years old, and I belonged to MS13 for life.

They gave me my first tattoo a week later, a small MS on my shoulder blade, hidden under my shirt, so my mother would not see it.

But she knew.

Mothers always know.

She cried and prayed and begged me to leave, but I told her what Carlos had told her.

This is the only way we survive.

Over the next few years, the tattoos spread.

My chest, my back, my arms.

Each one marking something.

A mission completed.

A rank earned, a brother lost.

By the time I was 18, I had the number 13 tattooed across my chest in large block letters and the names of five fallen homeboy tattooed down my spine.

My body was a map of violence and loyalty.

I started as a bandera, a lookout, watching for police, warning the dealers when cops were coming.

Then I moved up to selling drugs myself, standing on corners, making transactions, always watching my back.

Then I became a collector, going doortodoor in our territory, collecting the rent from businesses and families.

That was when I learned how to use fear.

You did not have to hurt people every time.

You just had to make them believe you would.

I carried a gun, a 9 mm pistol I kept tucked in my waistband, and I made sure everyone saw it.

Most people paid without trouble, but some refused.

And when they did, I had to make examples.

I broke fingers, burned shops, beat men in front of their families.

I hated it.

But I did it because the gang demanded it.

And if I showed weakness, I would be the one getting hurt.

By the time I was 20, I was a sold, a soldier trusted with bigger missions, defending territory, attacking rivals, carrying out hits.

I will not lie and say I never killed anyone.

I did three times.

Once was a bario 18 member who tried to move into our territory.

Once was a man who snitched to the police about our operations.

Once was a homeboy from our own gang who stole money and tried to run.

Each time I pull the trigger because I was ordered to.

And in MS-13, you do not question orders.

You do what you are told.

Or you die.

I remember their faces.

I remember the sound.

I remember the silence after.

And I remember feeling nothing.

That was what the gang did to you.

It killed your conscience before it killed your body.

I became Elgato the cat because I moved quietly, struck fast and disappeared before anyone knew what happened.

The name stuck and I wore it like armor.

But even with the respect, the money, the reputation, I was empty.

I drank to forget.

I smoked to numb the pain.

I slept with women whose names I never remembered.

I had everything the streets could offer, and I had nothing.

I was 25 years old and already tired of living.

I had seen too many funerals, buried too many brothers, caused too much pain.

My older brother, Carlos, the one who brought me into the gang, was killed in a shootout with police when I was 22.

They shot him 17 times and left his body in the street for hours as a warning.

I stood over his body and felt nothing.

I was already dead inside.

The gang took everything from me, my conscience, my family, my future, and gave me nothing but a number and a grave waiting for me.

I knew I would die young.

We all did.

You either died in a shootout or you died in prison.

Those were the only two endings for an MS-13 homeboy.

Then in March 2022, everything changed.

President Naib Blay declared a state of exception, suspending constitutional rights and ordering the military and police to arrest anyone suspected of gang membership.

It was a war.

They came into our neighborhoods with armored trucks, automatic rifles, and lists of names.

They did not care about evidence or trials.

If you had tattoos, if someone pointed at you, if you were in the wrong place, you were arrested.

In the first month, they arrested over 20,000 people.

I was picked up on March 29th.

I was asleep in my house when the soldiers kicked down the door at 5:00 in the morning.

They dragged me out in my underwear, threw me on the ground, put a boot on my neck, and zip tied my hands behind my back.

My mother was screaming.

My sisters were crying.

But the soldiers did not care.

They threw me in the back of a truck with 15 other homeboys.

All of us tattooed, all of us marked for life.

And they drove us to a detention center in San Salvador.

We spent two months in that center.

Hundreds of us packed into cells built for 50.

No beds, no space, just concrete floors and the smell of sweat and fear.

They did not charge us with specific crimes.

They did not give us lawyers.

They just held us and waited.

Then in June, they told us we were being transferred to a new facility.

They did not tell us where, but we had heard the rumors.

Second, Centro de Confinto del Terrorismo, the center for the confinement of terrorism.

A massive prison built in the middle of nowhere designed to hold 40,000 gang members with no possibility of release.

It was supposed to be the end.

A concrete tomb where we would be buried alive.

They loaded us onto buses, shackled our hands and feet, put black hoods over our heads so we could not see where we were going.

The drive took over 2 hours.

I could hear nothing but the engine and the breathing of the men around me.

No one spoke.

We all knew this was it.

When they finally pulled the hoods off, we were standing in front of the largest prison I had ever seen.

Secott.

It looked like a military fortress, all concrete and barbed wire, surrounded by walls and guard towers.

The entrance had soldiers with machine guns, dogs, cameras everywhere.

They processed us like cattle, stripped us naked, shaved our heads completely, shaved our beards, shaved every hair on our bodies.

They wanted to humiliate us, to strip away the last piece of identity we had.

Then they gave us uniforms, white shorts and nothing else.

No shirts, no shoes, just white shorts.

They took our names and gave us numbers.

I became 322847, prisoner phase 3, number 2,847.

Then they marched us into the cell blocks.

The halls were long and narrow, lined with metal doors on both sides.

They opened one door and shoved me inside.

The cell was 2 m wide and 3 m long.

Concrete walls, concrete floor, concrete ceiling, a metal bed frame with a thin foam mat, a toilet in the corner with no seat, a small window high up near the ceiling, too high to see out of, just enough to let in a little light.

That was it.

That was my home forever.

The door slammed shut behind me, and I heard the lock click.

I stood there in the silence looking at the gray walls and I realized this was my tomb.

I was 30 years old and my life was over.

I would never see the sun again.

I would never walk a street again.

I would never hold a woman again.

I would die in this box.

I sat down on the metal bed and put my head in my hands.

And for the first time since I was a child, I cried.

Not because I was innocent.

I was not.

I deserve to be here.

I had killed, stolen, destroyed.

But because I realized I had wasted my entire life for nothing.

MS-13 promised me family and they gave me a grave.

They promised me respect and they gave me a number.

They promised me power and they gave me a concrete box.

I had nothing.

I was nothing.

And there was no way out.

The first weeks in Secot were hell, not because of violence or chaos, but because of the silence and the emptiness.

We were locked in our cells for 23 hours a day.

The only break came at noon when they opened the doors and let us into a small concrete yard for 1 hour.

The yard was not much bigger than a basketball court, surrounded by high concrete walls topped with razor wire, and above that, metal nets to prevent anything from being thrown in or out.

There were no trees, no grass, no sky, just concrete, and the eyes of guards watching from towers with rifles.

30 of us from phase 3 would shuffle out into that yard, blinking against the light we had not seen in 23 hours, and we would walk in circles or do push-ups or sit against the walls and talk.

But mostly, we just existed.

Time moved differently in Sut.

Days felt like weeks, weeks felt like years.

There was no future, no hope, just the endless repetition of waking up, eating tasteless food pushed through a slot in the door, staring at concrete walls, and waiting for the 1 hour of yard time.

The men in phase 3 with me were all MS-13, separated from the bario 18 members who were housed in other phases of the prison to prevent riots.

I recognized some of them from the streets, homeboys I had worked with, fought beside, bled with.

But in Sikkot, the brotherhood felt hollow.

We had no territory to defend, no money to make, no wars to fight.

We were just numbers in white shorts waiting to die.

The hierarchy still existed in a weak form.

The ranos, the leaders, still gave orders, still demanded respect, still tried to maintain control.

But it was all meaningless.

What could they threaten us with? We were already in the tomb.

Some men fought to prove they were still hard, still dangerous.

Shanks were made from sharpened plastic or pieces of metal torn from bed frames.

And every few weeks, someone would get stabbed over a look, a word, an old grudge.

But most of us just gave up.

We became ghosts, shuffling through the routine, waiting for death.

About two months after I arrived, something strange started happening.

A man began visiting the prison.

His name was Padre Hector, and he was a Catholic chaplain, a priest in his 50s with gray hair and kind eyes.

He had permission from the prison administration to come once a week and hold a service in the yard for anyone who wanted to attend.

The first time he came, I watched from a distance as he set up a small wooden cross on a table and opened a Bible.

Maybe five men out of the 30 in the yard walked over and sat down to listen.

The rest of us laughed.

Religion was for the weak, for the old women and the broken.

We were MS13.

We did not need God.

We had survived on our own and we would die on our own.

Padre Hector did not seem bothered by the mockery.

He just smiled, read from his Bible, prayed out loud, and left.

The next week he came back and the week after that slowly a few more men started attending not because they believed but because it was something different a break in the monotony.

Then one day I noticed someone I never expected sitting in Padre Hector’s little gathering.

His name was Carlos Mendes but everyone called him El Verdugo the executioner.

Carlos was a legend in MS13.

one of the most feared men in all of El Salvador.

He was 42 years old and had been in the gang since he was 14.

He had 45 confirmed kills, maybe more that no one knew about.

He had executed rival gang members, police informants, civilians who refused to pay rent, even members of his own gang who betrayed the code.

His face was covered in tattoos, a devil’s horn on his forehead, tears under his eyes representing the lives he had taken, the letters MS tattooed across his throat.

He was serving multiple life sentences with no possibility of parole.

If anyone was destined to die in SEC, it was El Verdugo.

So when I saw him sitting cross-legged on the concrete listening to Padre Hector read from the Bible, I thought he had lost his mind.

The other homeboy thought the same thing.

They started mocking him immediately.

When Carlos walked to the chaplain’s gathering, men would shout insults.

They called him a rat, a fake, a coward.

They said he was trying to trick the guards into thinking he was reformed so he could get special treatment.

Some threw food at him during yard time.

Others threatened him, said he was disrespecting the gang by listening to that priest.

But Carlos did not respond.

He did not fight back.

He did not defend himself.

He just kept going to Padre Hector’s sessions every single week.

And then he started doing something even stranger.

He started praying in his cell.

We could hear him through the walls at night, whispering prayers in Spanish, asking Jesus to forgive him, asking for peace.

It was the craziest thing any of us had ever seen.

Elver Verdugo, the man who had killed 45 people without hesitation, was praying to Jesus like a child.

I asked him about it one day during yard time.

I walked up to him and said, “Verdugo, what are you doing, man? Why are you wasting your time with that priest? You know we are never getting out of here.

You know God does not care about men like us.

” Carlos looked at me with eyes that were different, softer somehow.

And he said, “Gate, I know what you think.

I thought the same thing.

” But I was wrong.

I have killed so many people, I lost count.

I destroyed families.

I sold my soul to this gang.

I thought I was beyond saving.

But Padre Hector told me something that changed everything.

He said, “Jesus did not come for the righteous.

He came for sinners.

He came for men like me, like us.

And I started believing him.

I started praying, asking Jesus to forgive me even though I did not deserve it.

And something happened, Gate.

I do not know how to explain it, but I feel different.

I feel lighter.

I feel like maybe, just maybe, there is hope.

I did not know what to say.

I walked away thinking Carlos had gone completely insane.

But over the next few months, I kept watching him and I saw the change.

He stopped fighting.

He stopped cursing.

He started helping other inmates, sharing his food, encouraging men who were breaking down.

He read the Bible Padre Hector had given him every single day slowly because he was not a good reader.

But he read it and he prayed constantly.

During yard time, he would sit in the corner with his eyes closed, lips moving, talking to Jesus like he was right there.

The other homeboy continued mocking him, but Carlos did not care.

He was focused on something we could not see, something we did not understand.

And honestly, I started to wonder, what if he was not crazy? What if there really was something to this Jesus that Padre Hector talked about? But I pushed the thought away.

I was not ready.

I was still too angry, too proud, too dead inside.

Then one day in early September 2023, everything changed.

We were in the yard for our daily hour when the loudspeaker crackled and a guard’s voice echoed across the concrete.

Prisoner P3, 11:58, Carlos Menddees, report to the administration office immediately.

We all looked at Carlos.

Being called to the office usually meant one of two things.

Either you were in trouble or someone in your family had died.

Carlos stood up calmly, nodded at Padre Hector, who was there that day, and walked toward the gate.

He was gone for over an hour.

When he came back to the yard, his face was unreadable.

We crowded around him asking what happened.

He said nothing at first, just stood there staring at the concrete.

Then he looked up and there were tears in his eyes.

He said, “They are releasing me.

” We all froze.

Someone laughed thinking it was a joke, but Carlos was not laughing.

He said it again.

“They are releasing me.

In two weeks, I walk out of SEO.

A free man.

” The yard erupted in confusion.

Men shouting, demanding to know how, why, what kind of deal he made.

Carlos Menddees, El Verdugo, the man with 45 kills and multiple life sentences was being released.

It made no sense.

It was impossible.

There had to be a mistake or a trick or something.

But Carlos just shook his head and said, “There is no mistake.

It is a miracle.

I have been praying for months and Padre Hector has been praying with me.

We agreed together that nothing is impossible for God and God did the impossible.

He is letting me go, not because I deserve it, but because Jesus paid for my sins.

I am forgiven and I am free.

The yard went silent.

No one knew what to say.

We had all heard about miracles and stories, but we had never seen one.

And now standing in front of us was a man who should have died in this prison, and he was leaving because of Jesus.

Over the next two weeks, the atmosphere in phase 3 changed completely.

Carlos’s release date was set for September 22nd, and every day that passed, more men started asking him questions.

At first, it was just curiosity.

How did this happen? Who signed the papers? What deal did you make? But Carlos kept giving the same answer.

No deal, no lawyer, no bribe, just Jesus.

He said that during his sessions with Padre Hector, they had prayed together every single week, asking God to do the impossible.

Carlos told us he had confessed everything to the priest, every murder, every sin, every evil thing he had done in his life.

And Padre Hector had told him that Jesus’s blood could wash it all away, that no sin was too great for God to forgive.

Carlos said he did not believe it at first, but he kept praying anyway because he had nothing to lose.

And then one day, he felt something change inside him.

The guilt that had been crushing him for decades lifted.

He said it was like a weight being removed from his chest and for the first time in his life, he felt peace.

Carlos also told us about the sessions with the chaplain.

how Padre Hector would sit with him in a small room and read from the Bible explaining the word slowly because Carlos struggled to read.

He said the chaplain never judged him, never looked at him with fear or disgust even after hearing all the terrible things he had done.

Instead, Padre Hector would put his hand on Carlos’s shoulder and say, “Brother, Jesus died for men like you.

He took your punishment on the cross so you could be forgiven.

All you have to do is believe and receive it.

Carlos said those words broke him.

He started weeping during the sessions, something he had not done since he was a child.

And Padre Hector would pray over him, asking God to heal his heart, to forgive his sins, and to give him a new life.

Carlos said he began to believe that maybe, just maybe, God could use even a man like him.

And then the miracle happened.

The decree came.

Someone high up in the government, for reasons no one could explain, decided to release him as part of a new program.

It was not logical.

It was not legal by the standards we understood.

It was simply grace.

The men in the yard started, listening differently.

Some still mocked him, called him delusional, said the release was just a random bureaucratic accident and had nothing to do with Jesus.

But others, the ones who had been in the gang long enough to know that nothing in this system happened by accident, started to wonder if God could get Carlos out of SEC, maybe God was real.

Maybe Jesus was not just a name old women prayed to in churches.

Maybe he actually had power.

I was one of those men.

I watched Carlos every day during that final two weeks, and I saw something in him that I had never seen in any homeboy before.

He had joy.

Real joy.

Not the fake laughter we used to cover our pain on the streets, but a deep, unshakable happiness that did not make sense in a place like this.

He smiled when he talked about Jesus.

He thanked God out loud during yard time.

He told us he was not afraid anymore.

Not of death, not of the gang, not of anything because he knew where he was going when he died.

He said Jesus had promised him eternal life and he believed it.

3 days before his release, Carlos gathered a group of us in the corner of the yard during our hour outside.

About 15 men sat in a circle around him, some because they were genuinely curious, others because they had nothing better to do.

Carlos looked at each of us and said, “I want to tell you what is going to happen when I leave here.

I am not going back to the streets.

I am not going back to MS13.

I am done with that life.

I am going to preach the word of Jesus to the whole country.

I am going to tell every gang member, every prisoner, every broken person in El Salvador that there is hope.

That no matter what you have done, no matter how many people you have killed, no matter how far you have fallen, Jesus can save you.

He saved me.

He can save you, too.

One of the homeboys, a man named Flaco, laughed and said, “Verdugo, you are crazy.

You think people are going to listen to you.

You think they are going to forget the 45 people you killed and just believe you because you say Jesus changed you.

” Carlos looked at him without anger and said, “No, they will not believe because of me.

They will believe because of what Jesus does in their own hearts.

I am just a witness.

I am just telling them what I have seen and what I have experienced and I know for certain that I am walking out of here not because I deserve it but because God had mercy on me.

He continued, “I have been meeting with Padre Hector every week for almost a year.

At first, I went because I was bored and desperate.

I had nothing else to do and I figured listening to an old priest talk could not make my life any worse.

But the more I listened, the more I realized that everything I thought I knew about God was wrong.

I thought God hated me.

I thought I was too dirty, too evil, too far gone.

But Padre Hector showed me verses in the Bible that said the opposite.

He showed me where Jesus said, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

” He showed me the story of the thief on the cross next to Jesus, a criminal just like me, who asked Jesus to remember him.

And Jesus said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.

” That thief did not do anything good.

He just believed and Jesus saved him.

When I heard that, I thought, “Maybe there is hope for me too.

” So I started praying and I kept praying and Padre Hector prayed with me.

We made an agreement in prayer.

We said, “God, we know this is impossible by human standards, but we believe you can do the impossible.

We ask you to open a door that no man can shut.

” And he did.

Carlos looked around at all of us.

His voice getting stronger.

He said, “I am telling you this because I do not want you to think this was luck or a mistake.

This was Jesus.

He heard my prayers.

He heard Padre Hector’s prayers.

and he moved heaven and earth to get me out of this place.

Not because I am special, but because he loves me and he loves you, too.

I do not care if you have killed one person or a hundred.

I do not care if you have MS-13 tattooed on your face or your whole body.

I do not care if you think you are the worst man who ever lived.

Jesus can save you.

I am proof.

and when I walk out of here, I am going to spend the rest of my life telling people that.

Some of the men sat in silence staring at the ground.

Others had tears in their eyes.

I felt something breaking inside me, something I had kept buried for years.

It was hope, a tiny, fragile hope that maybe I was not completely lost.

Maybe there was a way out.

Not out of the prison, but out of the darkness I had been living in my whole life.

On September 22nd, Carlos Menddees walked out of Seot.

We all watched from the yard as the guards escorted him to the main gate.

He turned back one last time, raised his hand and shouted across the yard, “Jesus is real.

He saves.

Do not give up.

” Then he disappeared through the gate and he was gone.

The yard was silent.

We had just witnessed something none of us thought was possible.

A man with 45 kills and multiple life sentences had walked free.

And he said it was because of Jesus.

That night, lying in my cell, I could not stop thinking about what Carlos had said.

I thought about the 15 years I had spent in MS-13, the violence, the emptiness, the hopelessness.

I thought about the three people I had killed and the families I had destroyed.

I thought about my mother’s tears and my brother’s death and the wasteland my life had become.

And for the first time since I was a child, I prayed.

I did not know how to pray properly.

I just whispered into the darkness, “Jesus, if you are real, if you really saved Carlos, then please save me too.

I do not deserve it, but I am asking anyway.

Please.

” I fell asleep with that prayer on my lips, and I did not know it yet.

But everything was about to change.

The day after Carlos left, the yard felt different.

Men who had never spoken to Padre Hector before started asking when he would come back.

The chaplain usually visited once a week, but after Carlos’s release, it felt like we could not wait that long.

We needed answers.

We needed to understand what had just happened.

When Padre Hector finally arrived the following Thursday, the small group of five men who used to attend his sessions had grown to over 20.

We sat in the yard, some on the concrete floor, others leaning against the walls, all of us looking at this old priest like he had the keys to a door we did not even know existed.

Padre Hector smiled when he saw the crowd.

He did not seem surprised.

He just opened his Bible, looked at us, and said, “I see that the testimony of Carlos has touched your hearts.

” Good.

That is exactly what Jesus does.

He uses one transformed life to reach many.

Today, I want to tell you about a man in the Bible who was a lot like Carlos.

His name was Paul, and he was a murderer, too.

Padre Hector told us the story slowly, making sure we understood every part.

He said Paul used to be called Saul and he was a religious man who hated the followers of Jesus.

He did not just disagree with them.

He hunted them down, dragged them out of their homes, threw them in prison, and watched them be killed.

Saul thought he was doing the right thing, serving God by destroying the Christians.

But one day, while he was traveling to arrest more believers, Jesus appeared to him in a blinding light and said, “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Saul fell to the ground blinded and terrified and asked, “Who are you, Lord?” And Jesus said, “I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting.

” That encounter changed Saul completely.

He went from being the greatest enemy of Christians to becoming the greatest preacher of the gospel.

He spent the rest of his life telling people about Jesus, and he wrote much of the New Testament, the second half of the Bible.

Padre Hector looked at us and said, “If Jesus can forgive a man like Saul and use him to change the world, he can forgive you.

He can use you.

You are not too far gone.

” You are exactly the kind of person Jesus came to save.

Those words hit me like a hammer.

I had spent my whole life believing I was beyond redemption, that I had done too much evil to ever be forgiven.

But here was this priest telling me that God specialized in saving the worst people.

That Jesus loved to take broken, violent men and turn them into something new.

I wanted to believe it, but I was afraid.

Afraid that if I open my heart, I would be disappointed.

Afraid that God would reject me.

Afraid that this was all just false hope.

But I kept coming back to Carlos.

I had known that man.

I had seen him kill without hesitation.

If Jesus could change him, maybe, just maybe, he could change me, too.

After Padre Hector finished teaching, he asked if anyone wanted to pray with him.

I hesitated, but then I saw other men raising their hands, men I had fought beside, men just as broken as me.

So, I raised my hand, too.

Padre Hector walked over to our group, about eight of us, and he said, “Repeat after me.

Jesus, I am a sinner.

I have done terrible things.

I do not deserve your forgiveness, but I believe you died for me.

I believe you rose from the dead.

I ask you to forgive me and make me new.

Save me, Lord.

Amen.

We repeated the words, some of us loudly, some of us barely whispering.

When I said them, I felt something strange.

It was not a dramatic feeling, not like lightning or fire.

It was quiet like a weight I did not even know I was carrying suddenly being lifted off my shoulders.

I opened my eyes and looked around and I saw men crying.

Grown men, hardened gang members with tattoos covering their faces, weeping like children.

Padre Hector put his hands on our shoulders and said, “Welcome to the family of God.

You are forgiven.

You are loved.

You are new.

” That day, eight men gave their lives to Jesus in the yard of seek.

Over the next few weeks, more followed.

By the end of October, over 50 men in phase 3 alone had prayed with Padre Hector.

The movement was spreading faster than any of us expected.

Men who had mocked Carlos just a month earlier were now asking how to pray.

Men who had spent their whole lives in MS-13 were renouncing the gang and following Jesus instead.

But it was not easy.

The Ramleros, the gang leaders saw what was happening and they did not like it.

To them, following Jesus was betrayal.

It was weakness.

It was abandoning the family.

One of the leaders, a man we called Sombra, pulled me aside during yard time and said, “Gateau, what are you doing? You are listening to that priest.

You are praying to Jesus.

Have you forgotten who you are? You are MS13 for life.

You made a blood oath.

You cannot just walk away because some old man tells you fairy tales.

I looked at Sombra and said, “I am not walking away from the gang because of fairy tales.

I am walking away because I have seen a miracle.

Carlos got out of here.

45 kills, multiple life sentences, and he walked free.

” You think that was an accident? You think that was luck? No, that was Jesus.

And if Jesus can save Carlos, he can save me.

I am done with MS-13.

I belong to God now.

Sombra’s face turned dark.

He said, “You are making a mistake, Gateau.

A big mistake.

You better watch yourself.

” The threats did not stop with words.

A few days later, one of the men who had prayed with Padre Hector, a guy named Paharo, was jumped in the bathroom by three homeboys.

They beat him badly, broke his nose, cracked two ribs, and left him bleeding on the floor.

The message was clear.

If you follow Jesus, you are a traitor, and traitors get punished.

But something strange happened.

Baharo did not fight back.

He did not retaliate.

He did not even curse them.

When the guards pulled him out and took him to the medical unit, he was praying, praying for the men who beat him.

When he came back to the yard a week later, his face still swollen and bruised, he walked straight to Padre Hector’s gathering and sat down.

The men who beat him watched from across the yard, confused.

They had expected him to be angry, to seek revenge, to fall back in line, but Bajaro had changed.

He was not afraid anymore, and that confused them more than anything.

The persecution only made the movement grow.

Other men saw Paharo’s courage and wanted what he had.

They wanted that peace, that fearlessness.

By November, the number of believers in phase 3 had grown to over a hundred.

We started meeting in small groups during yard time, reading the Bibles Padre Hector had smuggled in, praying together, encouraging each other.

We could not meet openly because the guards did not allow organized gatherings, and the gang leaders would attack us if we were too visible.

So we stayed low, meeting in twos and threes, sharing what we were learning, helping each other grow.

I was one of those men.

Every day I read a little more of the Bible.

Every night I prayed in my cell.

And slowly I started to change.

The anger that had defined me my whole life began to fade.

The nightmares of the people I had killed started to ease.

I began to feel something I had never felt before.

I felt forgiven.

One day during yard time, Padre Hector pulled me aside and said, “Miguel, I have been watching you.

You have grown so much in these few months.

I see the change in your eyes.

You are not the same man who came to me after Carlos left.

” I nodded and said, “Padre, I do not understand how this is possible.

I killed three people.

I destroyed lives.

How can God forgive that? How can I be clean? Padre Hector smiled and said, “Miguel, the blood of Jesus is more powerful than any sin.

When he died on the cross, he took the punishment for every evil thing you ever did.

Every murder, every lie, every act of violence, he paid for it all.

And when he rose from the dead, he proved that death and sin have no power over him.

Now, because you believe in him, his victory is your victory.

His righteousness is your righteousness.

You are not clean because of what you did.

You are clean because of what he did.

Do you believe that? I looked at the old priest, tears forming in my eyes, and I said, “Yes, Padre, I believe.

” By December 2023, the tension in phase 3 had reached a breaking point.

Over 150 men were now openly following Jesus and the gang leaders were losing control.

The movement was spreading to other phases of secret as well.

Men in phase 2, phase 4, even phase 7 were hearing about what was happening and asking their own guards to bring Padre Hector to them.

The chaplain was now visiting the prison three times a week instead of once.

Barely able to keep up with the demand.

The believers were no longer hiding.

We prayed out loud during yard time.

We sang hymns quietly in our cells at night.

We shared our testimonies with anyone who would listen.

And the gang leaders hated it.

They saw us as a threat to their authority, a rebellion against the code of MS-13.

The Ramleros held a meeting in the yard one afternoon, and we all knew what it was about.

They were going to make an example of someone to scare the rest of us back into line.

The man they chose was not me.

It was a believer named Chewy, a quiet guy in his mid30s who had been one of the first to follow Jesus after Carlos left.

Chewy was not loud or confrontational.

He just lived his faith peacefully, praying, reading his Bible, helping other inmates, but that made him a target.

During yard time, three enforcers surrounded him and started shouting, calling him a traitor, a coward, a fake Christian.

They said he had betrayed the gang and that there would be consequences.

Chewy did not respond.

He just stood there calmly looking at them without fear.

That only made them angrier.

One of them, a guy named Diablo, pulled out a shank he had hidden in his waistband, a sharpened piece of metal wrapped in cloth.

He stepped toward Chewy, ready to stab him in front of everyone.

But before he could, something unexpected happened.

A voice shouted from across the yard, loud and commanding, “Stop!” Everyone froze.

We turned to see who had spoken.

It was Sniper.

Sniper was one of the most powerful Remleros in phase 3, a man in his early 40s who had been in MS13 since he was a teenager.

He was called Sniper because he had been a marksman for the gang, responsible for long range hits on rival leaders and police officers.

He had at least 20 kills to his name, maybe more.

His entire face and neck were covered in tattoos, including the word MS across his forehead.

He was feared and respected by everyone, a true leader in the gang.

If Sniper gave an order, you obeyed without question.

So when he told Diablo to stop, Diablo stopped immediately.

Sniper walked slowly across the yard toward the group, and everyone stepped aside to let him through.

He looked at Diablo and said, “Put the shank away.

This is not the time.

” Diablo hesitated, confused, but he obeyed.

Sniper then turned to Cheuy and said, “You come with me.

We need to talk.

” Chewy nodded and followed Sniper to a corner of the yard away from the others.

The rest of us watched, not knowing what was about to happen.

Sniper and Chewy talked for about 10 minutes.

We could not hear what they were saying, but we could see Sniper’s face, and it was not angry.

It was serious, thoughtful, like he was listening carefully to something important.

When they finished, Chewy walked back to our group, and Sniper stood alone for a moment, staring at the concrete.

Then he walked over to where Padre Hector was sitting with a small group of believers and said, “Padre, I need to talk to you alone.

” Padre Hector looked surprised but nodded.

The two of them went to the far side of the yard and sat down.

For the next 20 minutes, Sniper talked and Padre Hector listened.

We had no idea what was being said, but we could see Sniper’s body language change.

His shoulders slumped, his head dropped, and then to everyone’s shock, we saw him put his face in his hands and start to shake.

Sniper, the cold, ruthless Renfro who had killed over 20 people, was crying.

When Padre Hector and Sniper finally stood up and walked back toward the center of the yard, the entire place went silent.

Every man stopped what he was doing and watched.

Sniper stood in front of all of us.

His tattooed face stre with tears and he said something no one expected.

He said, “I have been having dreams for the past 3 months.

I have been seeing a man in my sleep.

He is dressed in white and he has scars on his hands and feet.

He does not say much, but every time I see him, he says the same thing.

He says, “Why are you running from me? I love you.

Come home.

” I did not understand what it meant.

I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me because of the stress of being in here.

But then I saw what happened to Carlos.

I saw him walk out of this place when it was impossible.

And I started to wonder, what if the man in my dreams is real? What if he is Jesus? So I asked Chewy to tell me about his faith.

And he told me everything.

He told me that Jesus died for my sins, that he can forgive even someone like me.

And I realized, I do not want to keep running.

I am tired.

I am done.

I want to follow Jesus, too.

The yard erupted in whispers.

Sniper, one of the highest ranking gang leaders in Secot, had just publicly declared that he was following Jesus.

This was not just a regular member converting.

This was a Ramlero, a man with authority, with influence, with blood on his hands.

If Sniper could be saved, then no one was beyond reach.

Padre Hector put his hand on Sniper’s shoulder and said, “Do you believe that Jesus is the son of God? that he died for your sins and rose from the dead.

Sniper nodded, tears still falling.

He said, “Yes, Padre, I believe.

” Padre Hector smiled and said, “Then let us pray.

” Right there in the middle of the yard with over 200 men watching.

Sniper knelt on the concrete and prayed the same prayer I had prayed weeks earlier.

Jesus, I am a sinner.

I have done terrible things.

I do not deserve your forgiveness, but I believe you died for me.

I believe you rose from the dead.

I ask you to forgive me and make me new.

Save me, Lord.

When he finished, Padre Hector helped him to his feet and said, “You are forgiven, my son.

You are a new creation.

Welcome to the family of God.

” The impact of Sniper’s conversion was immediate and massive.

If a Ranero could follow Jesus, then it was no longer seen as weakness.

It was seen as strength.

Within two weeks, over 50 more men gave their lives to Christ, many of them enforcers and mid-level leaders who had been hesitant before.

The gangs control over phase 3 collapsed.

Men who used to enforce the code with violence were now praying together and studying the Bible.

The shanks that had been hidden under mattresses were turned into the guards.

The fights that used to break out every few days stopped completely.

The guards noticed the change and reported it to the prisons administration.

The warden himself came to phase three to see what was happening.

He walked through the yard during one of Padre Hector’s sessions and saw over a 100 tattooed gang members sitting quietly listening to scripture, singing hymns.

He could not believe it.

Secott had been designed as a place of punishment, a tomb for the most violent criminals in Central America.

But something impossible was happening.

It was becoming a place of transformation.

By January 2024, the number of believers in SEO had grown to over 300 across all eight phases.

Padre Hector was overwhelmed.

He told us he had never seen anything like this in his 30 years of prison ministry.

He said it was a revival, a move of God that could not be explained by human logic.

Men who had spent their entire lives destroying were now building each other up.

Men who had killed without hesitation were now weeping over their sins and asking for forgiveness.

Men who had been enemies, MS-13 and bario 18 members were finding common ground in Christ and praying for each other through the walls that separated them.

The prison administration seeing the dramatic reduction in violence started allowing more religious activities.

They gave Padre Hector permission to bring in more Bibles, more Christian literature, more resources.

They even designated certain areas of the yard as prayer zones where believers could gather without interference.

But not everyone was happy.

There were still gang members who rejected the movement, who saw it as betrayal and weakness.

There were still threats, still occasional violence, still men who wanted to hold on to the old life.

And outside the prison, MS-13 leaders on the streets were hearing about what was happening in Secot.

And they were angry.

They sent messages through new inmates warning the believers that if they ever got out, there would be consequences for abandoning the gang.

But we were not afraid.

We had seen too much.

We had experienced too much.

Jesus had done the impossible in our lives and we were not going back.

Sniper, who was now one of the leaders of the believer community, said it best during one of our gatherings.

He said, “They can threaten us all they want.

They can kill our bodies, but they cannot touch our souls.

We belong to Jesus now and nothing can separate us from his love.

Not violence, not prison, not death.

We are free even in this tomb and we will keep following him no matter what comes.

By March 2024, the movement inside Sackot had grown beyond anything we could have imagined.

Over 500 men across the eight phases of the prison were now openly following Jesus.

The violence that had once defined the place had dropped dramatically.

Guards who used to break up fights daily were now reporting weeks without a single incident in the believer sections.

The prison administration was so impressed by the change that they started calling it the secret miracle.

News outlets in El Salvador began hearing rumors about what was happening inside the country’s most feared prison and some reporters requested permission to visit and document the transformation.

The government, eager to show that their harsh policies were working, agreed.

Television crews came into SECOT and filmed interviews with former gang members who were now reading Bibles and praying together.

The footage shocked the nation.

People could not believe that men with devil horns tattooed on their foreheads and MS-13 symbols covering their bodies were weeping and talking about Jesus saving them.

In April 2024, something unexpected happened to me.

I was called to the administration office just like Carlos had been months earlier.

My heart was pounding as I walked through the concrete hallways with a guard escorting me.

I had no idea why I was being summoned.

When I entered the office, there were three people waiting for me.

The warden, a government official I did not recognize, and Padre Hector.

The warden looked at me and said, “Miguel Dwarte, you have been selected for a new rehabilitation program.

” The government of El Salvador, in partnership with international human rights organizations, has created a pilot project to release a small number of prisoners who have demonstrated genuine transformation.

You are one of 20 men being considered.

If you agree to participate, you will undergo a series of evaluations over the next 6 months.

If you pass, you will be released under strict supervision and relocated outside of El Salvador for your safety.

Do you understand? I could barely breathe.

I nodded and said, “Yes, sir, I understand.

” The official then said, “This is not a guarantee.

Many will be evaluated, but only a few will be released.

You will be monitored closely.

Any sign of deception or relapse, and you will be sent back to SECOT permanently.

Do you agree to these terms? I said, “Yes, I agree.

” Over the next 6 months, I went through the most intense process of my life.

Psychologists interviewed me weekly, asking about my past, my crimes, my transformation, my faith.

They gave me tests to measure my mental state, my sincerity, my risk of reoffending.

They watched me in the yard, observing how I interacted with other inmates, whether I showed signs of violence or manipulation.

Padre Hector advocated for me, writing letters to the review board, explaining the depth of my change, vouching for my faith.

Other believers in SEO prayed for me constantly, asking God to open the door if it was his will.

I did not know if I would be chosen.

I did not know if I deserve to be.

But I trusted that whatever happened, Jesus was in control.

In October 2024, I was called back to the administration office.

The same three people were there.

The warden looked at me and said, “Miguel Dwarte, you have been approved for release.

You will leave SEO in 2 weeks.

You will be deported to Guatemala where a Christian organization has agreed to sponsor you.

You will never be allowed to return to El Salvador.

If you violate the terms of your release, you will be arrested and imprisoned again.

Do you understand?” I could not speak.

Tears filled my eyes.

I just nodded.

The two weeks before my release were the hardest and the most beautiful of my life.

I spent every moment I could with my brothers in Secot, the men who had walked this journey with me.

We prayed together, cried together, encouraged each other.

Sniper pulled me aside one day and said, “Gate, God is sending you out to be a witness.

Do not waste this gift.

Tell the world what Jesus did in this place.

Tell them that no one is beyond saving.

I promised him I would.

” On the day of my release, October 15th, 2024, I walked through the gates of Secot for the last time.

I turned back and looked at the massive concrete fortress that had been my tomb for over two years.

But it was not a tomb anymore.

It was a birthplace.

I had entered that place as a dead man and I was leaving as someone completely new.

The a guards handed me over to officials from the Christian organization at the border.

They drove me to Guatemala City where I was placed in a safe house run by a ministry that helps ex gang members reintegrate into society.

Adjusting to life outside prison was harder than I expected.

Everything was overwhelming.

The noise, the freedom, the choices.

For over two years, I had lived in a concrete box with no decisions to make.

Now I had to figure out how to live again.

The ministry provided counseling, job training, and spiritual support.

I started working with them, helping other former gang members who were trying to leave that life behind.

I shared my testimony at churches, at youth centers, at conferences.

I told them about MS-13, about Secot, about Carlos the executioner walking free, about Sniper the Renero kneeling in the yard, about 500 men finding Jesus in the darkest place in Central America.

People were shocked.

Some did not believe me, but I did not need them to believe me.

I just needed to tell the truth.

In early 2025, a documentary crew contacted me.

They wanted to film my story.

and the story of what was happening in SEO.

I agreed knowing that going public would make me a target.

MS-13 still had a green light on me for leaving the gang.

They could find me.

They could kill me.

But I was not afraid anymore.

The documentary was released in March 2025 and went viral across Latin America.

Millions of people watched the testimony of former gang members whose lives had been transformed by Jesus.

Families of victims reached out to me, some with anger, some with forgiveness.

One woman wrote to me and said, “You killed my brother in 2018.

I have hated you for years, but after watching your testimony, I see that you are not the same man.

I do not know if I can fully forgive you yet, but I believe Jesus can.

I am praying for you.

” That letter broke me.

I realized that even though I was forgiven by God, the consequences of my actions would follow me for the rest of my life.

I had to live with that.

But I also had hope.

Hope that God could use even my worst mistakes for his glory.

Today I live in Guatemala, still under supervision, still working with the ministry, still sharing my testimony.

I stay in contact with the believers in Secot through Padre Hector who sends me updates.

The movement is still growing.

As of mid2025, over 600 men are following Jesus inside that prison.

Other prisons in El Salvador are reporting the same phenomenon.

God is moving in the darkest places and nothing can stop him.

If you are watching this, if you are in a gang, if you are in prison, if you think you are too far gone, I want you to hear this.

I was MS13 for 18 years.

I killed three people.

I destroyed families.

I lived for violence and death.

But Jesus saved me.

He forgave me.

He gave me a new life.

And if he can do that for me, he can do it for you.

You do not have to wait until you are in second.

You do not have to wait until you hit rock bottom.

You can call out to him right now, wherever you are.

Say, “Jesus, I am a sinner.

I need you.

Save me.

” And he will.

I promise you, he will.

Carlos the executioner is out there preaching the gospel.

Sniper is still in Secot leading hundreds of men to Christ.

And I am here telling you that your past does not define your future.

Jesus does.

He is the God of second chances.

He is the God of the impossible and he is calling you home.

Will you answer? If this testimony touched you, share it.

Pray for the men still inside SECOT.

Pray for gang members across the world who need to hear this message.

And remember, your light cannot be chained.

Not by bars, not by tattoos, not by your past.

Jesus is stronger.

He is Lord and he is still doing miracles.

Even in the tomb, he brings life.

Even in the darkness, he shines.

Trust him.

Follow him.

He is worth everything.