Honduran President Hernandez allegedly helped smuggle cocaine into US
Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández helped smuggle tons of cocaine into the United States, a U.S. prosecutor said Tuesday at the trial of an accused drug trafficker.
That defendant, Geovanny Fuentes, bribed the president with $25,000 in cash and this made Fuentes "untouchable," prosecutor Jacob Gutwillig said in opening arguments at the New York federal trial.
The president said the prosecutor, "made the defendant bullet-proof."
Fuentes paid the money to Hernández in meetings in 2013 and 2014, the prosecutor said. Hernández, 52, who denies all the allegations against him, has been in power since January 2014.
The president's brother, Tony Hernández, was convicted of large-scale drug trafficking (at least 200 tons) at a New York trial in 2019.
At: https://www.dailysabah.com/world/americas/honduran-president-hernandez-allegedly-helped-smuggle-cocaine-into-us
Good boy: Then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hosts Honduran President Orlando Hernández at the State Department in 2017.
Court documents, which identify Hérnandez as a co-conspirator in a New York case, quoted him as saying he wanted to "shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos' by flooding the United States with cocaine."
The president's brother Tony is a convicted drug trafficker, and cocaine exports from Honduras have soared under his regime.
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What fiends and thugs he and his family are! This is excellent news, isn't it?
He has been so cocky for so long, and cherished his Teflon armor.
Here's a memory refresher about former President Porfirio Lobo Sosa, who, somehow has evaded serious scrutiny, himself:
Son of Honduras Ex-President Arrested for Drug Trafficking
CACHIROS
/ 22 MAY 2015 BY LOREN RIESENFELD
The son of former President Porfirio Lobo Sosa of Honduras was captured in an anti-drug operation in Haiti, a turn of events that may make other Honduran political elites very nervous.
The government of Honduras and former president Porfirio Lobo Sosa confirmed on May 22 that Fabio Lobo Lobo, the former president’s oldest son, was arrested in Haiti in a joint operation between the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Haitian police. Lobo was transferred to New York, where he will stand trial on drug trafficking charges, reported El Heraldo.
Lobo allegedly had links to the Cachiros, one of Honduras’s principal drug trafficking organizations. The Cachiros were once led by Javier Eriberto and Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga, two brothers who both surrendered to US authorities in January, according to El Heraldo. Lobo also reportedly had a close friendship with Ramon Matta, the son of legendary drug trafficker Ramon Matta Ballasteros.
Lobo Sosa did not rush to defend his son, telling a local television station, “If he is guilty, he has to answer to the law,” reported La Prensa. The US Ambassador to Honduras took to social media, tweeting, “No one is above the law,” a presumed reference to Lobo’s arrest.
No one is above the law.
— US Ambassador HN (@USAmbHonduras) May 21, 2015
https://insightcrime.org/news/brief/son-of-honduras-ex-president-arrested-for-drug-trafficking/
Sosa.
~ ~ ~
Found this article when looking for info. on Trump and Juan Orlando Hernández:
GameChangers 2020: Conflicting US Approach to Latin America Organized Crime
COCA
/
22 DEC 2020
BY PARKER ASMANN AND SETH ROBBINS
EN
President-elect Joe Biden has a chance to reset the table on US-Latin American relations, but the Trump administration’s schizophrenic, transactional approach may leave some lasting scars that will be hard to cover.
Trump was sometimes bellicose, sending warships to the Caribbean in a clear bid to intimidate Venezuela and demanding that Mexico and Colombia continue hard-line measures against drug trafficking in spite of little evidence this approach was working. In fact, cocaine production continued to soar in Colombia, overall security in Mexico deteriorated into unprecedented violence and Venezuela did not flinch.
He was sometimes transactional, forcing the presidents of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to acquiesce to his demands on immigration, his principal and arguably only concern as it relates to the region. They agreed, perhaps because in return they got diplomatic cover as they flouted anti-corruption efforts.
Trump was nearly always incoherent. US federal prosecutors indicted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on narcoterrorism and drug trafficking charges, but Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández retained his status as a key partner in US counter-drug missions, despite being an unnamed co-conspirator in his brother’s cocaine trafficking ring in a US courtroom.
More:
https://insightcrime.org/news/analysis/conflicting-us-approach-latin-america/
