Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem appears to have worn a gold Rolex watch worth nearly $60,000 during her visit to an notorious hellhole prison in El Salvador on Wednesday.
The flashy bling — which Noem spotted wearing as she filmed a video in front of a cell full of inmates at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) — was identified as a gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona in a viral post on X.
A new Cosmograph Daytona sells online for $59,500, according to online listings.
She was wearing the same watch in her meeting with Colombia’s foreign minister on Thursday.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
“President Trump and I have a clear message to criminal illegal aliens: LEAVE NOW,” she wrote in the post shared on X on Wednesday. “If you do not leave, we will hunt you down, arrest you, and you could end up in this El Salvadoran prison.”
In the video, Noem, 53, had a warning for undocumented migrants.
“If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face,” she said. “This facility is one of the tools in our toolkit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people.”
The prison lies some 47 miles southeast of El Salvador’s capital city, San Salvador, and has been a flagship part of the country’s President Nayib Bukele’s crackdown on violent drug cartels.
Noem’s choice of jewelry sparked controversy online with many questioning how she could afford such a piece of designer wear on a government salary.
“Don’t hear Elon Musk looking into Kristi Noem’s finances when she’s wearing a $60,000 watch on a $156,000 salary,” one X user wrote.
Noem’s most recently reported net worth was $2.3 million in 2017, according to the research group OpenSecrets.org which tracks money in US politics.
Noem grew up on a 10,000-acre farm that was worth more than $2 million when her father died in 1994 in a farming accident, according to public records.
“Who is running her account. You need to be fired. You’re making her look like an idiot,” another X user who described themselves as a Republican wrote. “Wearing a $50k watch parading in front of gangbangers. Ridiculous.”
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