The Dirty Balance Sheet of the Prisoner Swap – Trump, Bukele and the Man with the Knife

As we already revealed in our research in June and July 2025, the prisoner deal between Washington, Bukele and Maduro was a political and moral scandal. In our article of September 3 we had described the background of the deal, Dahud Hanid Ortiz was not traceable at that time.

Today comes the update – and as expected, nothing has happened. Ortiz is still at large. From Texas via Orlando, Florida he also traveled on to New Mexico, still without surveillance, without conditions, without new arrest. It leaves one speechless: there, unfortunately, his trail was lost. A man who murdered three people in Madrid with a knife, set the office on fire to cover his tracks, and was sentenced to 30 years in prison is strolling unhindered through the United States. Normally the perfect target for Trump’s ICE raids – but nothing happened.

The images from San Antonio look like they are from another world: smiling faces, waving US flags, a president staging himself as a liberator. Ten US citizens, imprisoned in Venezuela, are returning home – "Freedom," cheered Secretary of State Marco Rubio. On X he wrote: "Thanks to the leadership of the president, ten Americans, later the White House spoke only of 9 innocent men who had been imprisoned in Venezuela, are on their way to freedom." Rubio thanked the State Department and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele for the deal. What more can you say?

Donald Trump himself remained silent. No tweet, no Truth Social post, no appearance. Instead, he left the messages of triumph to Rubio – a calculated move that lets the president be celebrated without making him vulnerable. The exchange itself was choreographed like an international stage production. First Maduro had the ten Americans taken from Venezuelan prisons, including Ortiz. Instead of sending them directly to the USA, they were flown to El Salvador – a political show in which President Nayib Bukele personally welcomed them and let the cameras roll. From there they went on to Texas, where the plane landed at Joint Base San Antonio Lackland and people formed a guard of honor at their arrival. This turned a risky prisoner transfer into a PR show in which all three governments looked like winners: Bukele as the tough sheriff, Maduro as the pragmatic negotiator, Trump as the liberator. But among the returnees was Dahud Hanid Ortiz – a 54-year-old former US Marine, Purple Heart recipient, who returned from the Iraq war with physical and psychological injuries. After his dishonorable discharge from the armed forces in 2014 for falsifying documents, he lived with his wife in Würzburg, near the US base Schweinfurt. When the relationship broke down, the situation escalated: Ortiz stole his wife’s phone, called Víctor Salas and threatened: "I am trained to kill, and I am going to kill you."

On June 20, 2016, he got behind the wheel of an old silver VW Golf and drove more than 1,200 kilometers to Madrid. Two days later, on June 22, he entered Salas’s law office in the Madrid district of Usera. Salas was not there. Instead, Ortiz killed the two employees Maritza Osorio and Elisa Consuegra as well as the client Pepe Castillo, whom he mistook for Salas. Then he set the office on fire and drove back to Germany. With the help of his friend Adytia Dolontelide he set up an alibi: phone, bank card, gym – everything was meant to prove he had never left.

The Grupo V de Homicidios of the Policía Nacional meticulously reconstructed the course of events, evaluated surveillance cameras, DNA traces and phone connections. But the investigating judge Juan Carlos Peinado initially pursued a false lead and believed in a Mexican cartel. Only a year after the crime did he issue the international arrest warrant – by then Ortiz had long since fled to Venezuela via Colombia. From there he continued to terrorize his wife. "I have all the time in the world, no fear, one goal and a lot of information," he wrote, signing with "The horrible human being." He threatened suicide, used drugs, sent emails to his wife’s sister in which he wrote: "I did horrible things without meaning to. I hope I slowly disappear from your lives."

In 2018 Ortiz was arrested in Puerto Ordaz, shortly after a drone attack on President Maduro had failed. He was interrogated as a possible US spy, mistreated and finally handed over to the military intelligence services. Spain requested his extradition, Venezuela refused. After a trial that was postponed several times, Ortiz was sentenced to 30 years in prison in Caracas on January 9, 2024 – the maximum sentence. Two appeals failed, most recently in May 2025.

Dass er nun im Kreise von Rückkehrern posiert, strahlend die Stars-and-Stripes hochhält, ist für die Angehörigen der Opfer eine Zumutung. Víctor Salas, der Anwalt, der eigentlich das Ziel war, lebt bis heute mit Polizeischutz und sagte gegenüber El País, er sei „entsetzt, dass dieser Mann nach so kurzer Zeit frei ist“. Auch Juan Carlos Consuegra, Vater von Elisa, sprach von einer „Verhöhnung des Rechtsstaats“ und forderte gemeinsam mit Salas, dass die spanische Justiz reagiere.

Our research has already shown in the summer, most recently our article of September 3 under the link: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/der-menschenhandel-der-moderne-und-der-kalte-wert-der-moral/ – that this deal with Caracas was not a humanitarian act but a business: Washington paid Bukele to release 252 alleged members of the "Tren de Aragua" gang from his Cecot prison, who had previously been deported from the USA without trial. Bukele cashed in political points, Maduro was able to feed his propaganda, and Trump staged a foreign policy triumph – at the expense of justice.

For every deported Venezuelan, the Trump regime pays money to El Salvador – dollars that flow directly into Bukele’s system. But a large part of the detainees, mostly innocent people, no longer served public safety but only a political calculation. They were part of a planned prisoner swap that was carried out last month or in part as early as July 2025 – which means: Bukele collected money for people he has now released because the deal went through. It would be almost funny if it were not so ice cold, so cynical, so perfidious, Bukele really cashed in. Nayib Bukele had already confirmed this in April with a tweet that revealed more than intended. It was not a diplomatic letter, not a confidential note between heads of state. It was a public post on X, where the president of El Salvador announced the moral prisoner trade with calculated coldness: 252 Venezuelan migrants, deported from the USA and imprisoned in El Salvador without trial, in exchange for 252 political prisoners in Venezuela.

Europe, Madrid, Berlin, Brussels, Washington – they all remain silent. No protest, no diplomatic note, no debate. If even a triple murder is no longer enough to draw red lines, what remains of the European idea of the rule of law? It is not only about justice for three innocent victims, but about the credibility of the rule of law. Those who duck away here signal: murder can be negotiable. It would be almost funny if it were not so brutal: a president buys political points with human lives, another cashes in, and a convicted murderer travels across the country. Anyone who still believes that this deal was safe should talk to Víctor Salas. He remembers the 2022 trial in Caracas, when he looked Ortiz directly in the face and said: "You will end up in prison." Ortiz just laughed. Today that sentence sounds like mockery.