San Salvador (AFP) - El Salvador’s police chief, the leader of the country’s “war” on gangs, was killed in a helicopter crash while bringing home a fugitive, the army said Monday.

Mauricio Arriaza Chicas was killed with eight others when their helicopter crashed near Pasaquina, near the border with Honduras, in the early morning hours.

President Nayib Bukele declared three days of national mourning in honor of Arriaza, who had led El Salvador’s crackdown on criminal gangs since March 2022.

The controversial campaign has netted nearly 82,000 suspected gangsters under a state of emergency that allows for arrests without warrants.

“Director Arriaza Chicas was a fundamental piece in bringing peace and security to our people,” Bukele said Monday on X.

“We will investigate this to the end, but no one can bring back our national hero.”

Arriaza had arrived at the border at dusk, where Honduran officials handed over Manuel Coto, a former manager of the Cosavi credit union under police custody, the military said.

Coto, on the run for allegedly embezzling around $35 million, was arrested Sunday while “driving with a human trafficker to the United States,” according to Honduran Security Minister Gustavo Sanchez.

Honduras handed him over to Salvadoran authorities via Interpol.

“We want to congratulate, acknowledge and thank you for this international operations maneuver that we are developing with the Republic of Honduras and other countries,” Arriaza told state television after the handover, in what would turn out to be his last public statement.

- ‘A strategist’ -

The state-run Canal 10 TV channel said David Cruz, the head of communications for El Salvador’s security ministry, was also killed in the crash.

Others on board the Salvadoran Air Force UH-1H helicopter were two high-ranking commissioners, a corporal, a sergeant and two lieutenant pilots, according to officials and the defense ministry.

“We regret to confirm the death of all those on board,” the military said on social media platform X.

All the bodies had been recovered, the presidency said Monday.

Bukele said he would ask for international assistance in investigating the crash.

Defense Minister Rene Francis Merino Monroy described Arriaza as “a strategist who changed the course of the (national police).”

“We will continue fulfilling the mission until we achieve the country you dreamed of,” he wrote on X.

Bukele’s crackdown on gangs has drawn criticism from rights groups but has won him sky-high approval ratings.

Supporters credit him with returning a sense of normality to a violence-fatigued society.

The country last year recorded its lowest homicide rate in three decades, turning it from one of Latin America’s deadliest countries into one of its safest.

But it has come at a cost.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have reported the killing and torture of detainees, and thousands of innocent people – including minors – among those arrested.