SHOCKING pictures show ultra-violent gang members crammed into the "world's largest" mega-prison.

The first batch of tattooed inmates have arrived new "inescapable" jail in El Salvador – able to house up to 40,000 gangsters.

Prisoners are guarded around the clock by 250 police officers and 600 soldiers at the so-called Terrorism Containment Center in the murder capital.

Meanwhile, prison officials with assault rifles will guard the inside, making it "impossible to escape".

Pictures show 2,000 inmates arriving at the high-tech prison, ferried in a huge convoy made up of buses, cop cars, army trucks and helicopters.

Prisoners – topless wearing only white shorts with their heads shaved – were then ordered to sit in long lines, with each putting his legs around the one in front.

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Footage shows them running through the new prison into cells while leaning forward, hands cuffed behind their backs, past armed security guards brandishing shields and clad in full riot gear.

It comes amid President Nayib Bukele's aim to tackle high levels of crime.

He tweeted on Friday: Today at dawn, in a single operation, we transferred the first 2,000 gang members to the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT).

"This will be their new house, where they will live for decades, mixed up, unable to do any more harm to the population.

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"We continue."

Built in a remote area near Tecoluca, it covers 166 hectares and could be the largest prison in the world.

Buckele said in the new gigantic prison inmates will no longer have access to "prostitutes, PlayStations, screens, mobile phones and computers."

Electronic equipment will block cell phone signals to prevent any communication from the prison.

The jail is made up of eight buildings, each housing 32 cells to hold "more than 100" inmates, Public Works Minister Romeo Rodriguez said.

Every cell has only two toilets, two sinks and 80 metal bunk beds.

The country's Deputy Justice Minister Osiris Luna said the inmates would be made to work to "compensate for some of the damage they did to society.

He said: "All the terrorists who (caused) grief and pain to the Salvadoran people will serve their sentences… under the most severe regime."

Bukele asked his allies in El Salvador's Congress to pass a state of exception last year, which has since been extended several times.

It suspends some constitutional rights after a dramatic spike in murders attributed to violent gangs.

Since then, more than 64,000 suspects have been arrested in the anti-crime dragnet.

Arrests can be made without a warrant, private communications are accessible by the government, and detainees no longer have the right to a lawyer.

Cops stormed into neighbourhoods arresting suspected criminals – a move that has been slammed by human rights organisations.

Human Rights Watch has denounced the country's "severe prison overcrowding" as a result of the mass arrests.

Without the newly-built CECOT, the country's 20 prisons had a total capacity of 30,000 inmates.

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El Salvador's largest prison, La Esperanza, currently holds 33,000 people despite having a capacity of 10,000.

With nearly two percent of its adult population behind bars, El Salvador has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

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