N+ Univision Investiga Presents Las Dos Caras de Bukele This Sunday, Aug. 2 on Univision and ViX

Anchor Ilia Calderón unveils the findings of six months of reporting on the alleged gang pacts, Cold War-era ties and personal profits behind El Salvador's popular president.

MIAMI — July 30, 2026 — N+ Univision, the U.S. news division of TelevisaUnivision, presents Las Dos Caras de Bukele, an investigative special from N+ Univision Investiga hosted by anchor Ilia Calderón, this Sunday, Aug. 2 at 7 p.m. ET/PT (6 p.m. CT) airing on Univision. The special will also streaming live on ViX’s N+ Univision 24/7 news channel, where it will also be available on demand, and on N+ Univision’s YouTube channel.

Over the course of six months, N+ Univision Investiga, in collaboration with El Salvador’s newspaper El Faro, conducted interviews and reviewed official documentation to examine the two faces of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele: the immense popularity he built by driving down crime in a country once ranked among the world’s most violent, and the alleged pacts with gang leaders that reporters say helped secure his election wins.

Las Dos Caras de Bukele follows the case of gang leader Elmer Canales, known as "Crook," who walked free from a San Salvador prison in November 2021 with no judicial order for his release and was later arrested in Mexico and sent to New York to face U.S. charges. Two former gang leaders describe secret pacts with the Bukele government covering elections and violence, and reporters examine how the Trump administration's alliance with Bukele coincided with a slowdown in corruption investigations tied to those pacts.

The journalists analyze Bukele’s early years with previously unseen video footage of his graduation and school yearbook entries, and profile his father, Armando, who financed the FMLN before converting to Islam and founding El Salvador’s first mosque.

The special investigates the role of José Luis Merino, a former FMLN guerrilla fighter who became Bukele’s political mentor during his years as a leftist activist. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio told Congress in 2016 that Merino was a money launderer and arms trafficker for the Colombian FARC guerrilla group.

Reporters also examine the corruption scheme linked to Venezuelan aid funds under former President Hugo Chávez, from which Bukele personally benefited.

Las Dos Caras de Bukele reinforces N+ Univision’s commitment to being the voice of Hispanics in the United States. TelevisaUnivision’s news division is committed to providing the Hispanic community with objective, timely and comprehensive coverage of the issues that matter most across Latin America and the U.S.