Illegal Migrant Accused of Murder Found to be Living in South Carolina

Berkeley County, South Carolina, was recently home to an alleged MS-13 gang member who is an illegal immigrant sought for murder.

The sheriff’s office said that a deputy was on patrol at the intersection of Highway 402 and Highway 52 when he pulled over a car with a broken tail light.

After a traffic check in Berkeley County on June 29,  31-year-old Elmer Neftali Martinez-Escobar, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, was detained and booked for simple possession of marijuana.  The police said that a sheriff’s officer stopped Martinez-Escobar and noticed that he smelled strongly of marijuana.

After confessing to possessing marijuana, the deputy checked Martinez-Escobar’s identity in the NCIC database and found that he was wanted for murder in El Salvador, where he was born and raised and an active member of the criminal MS-13 gang.
The MS-13 gang (Mara Salvatrucha) is a notorious worldwide criminal organization.

After searching Martinez-Escobar, the deputy discovered 8 grams of marijuana and placed him under arrest. 

After being booked at Hill-Finklea Detention Center, Martinez-Escobar was taken into custody by authorities from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The FBI reached out to the Department of Justice, who verified the details.  

According to Berkeley County Sheriff Duane Lewis, who spoke to the local media, this traffic stop exemplifies how law enforcement personnel use their training to detect criminal offenders.  He claimed to have faith in the officers to preserve Berkeley County’s safety, even if the outcome of a traffic encounter is always unpredictable.

Martinez-Escobar most likely broke through the US-Mexico border as a “got-away” illegal immigrant, slipping by Border Patrol officials unnoticed. He will be deported to El Salvador after his arrest by ICE.

Approximately 194,000 people, referred to as “gotaways,”  infiltrated the United States through ports of entry on the southwest border. The illegal migrants were neither screened nor identified when they entered the United States.

According to data from CBP, over 194,000 migrants were identified as “known gotaways” in the first eight months of Fiscal Year 24. According to the data, 500 were added per day by mid-June. These figures were verified by high-ranking US Customs and Border Protection officials.