Revelations from the New York trial of former Honduran president and U.S. ally Juan Orlando Hernández. Allegations about Mexico's President and Colombia's acting chief prosecutor.
The drug-trafficking trial of former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández began on February 20 in New York. The prosecution’s witnesses, a series of Honduran drug traffickers, gang members. and corrupt politicians, have given extensive testimony about the former president’s relationships to the criminal underworld in Honduras and Mexico.
During his time in office (2013-2021), officials in the Obama and Trump administrations praised Hernández as a partner in counter-drug and counter-migration efforts. Meanwhile, Hernández was taking bribe money, often as campaign contributions, from traffickers. Some of the bribes were documented in a trafficker’s notebook ledgers. A witness alleged that the leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, contributed $1 million.
Hernández is being tried alongside a former Honduran police chief, Juan Carlos “El Tigre” Bonilla, another official whom U.S. officials had considered a partner despite lingering human rights abuse allegations. “The United States’ record of working with unsavory characters” may “offer foreign leaders and officials a false sense of security,” the Economist observed.
“The narco-state was consolidated in the midst of the polarization left by the [2009] coup d’état, and it happened over a history of violent polarization between traditional political parties, landowners, and opportunist politicians,” wrote Jennifer Ávila, director of the Honduran investigative outlet ContraCorriente. “A history of fratricidal confrontation that has only benefited the political elites who renew themselves in power over and over again.”
- David Adams, Jeff Ernst, “Fabio Lobo: Juan Orlando Was “the Brains” Behind Hernandez Family Drug Trafficking” (El Faro (El Salvador), February 20, 2024).
- “The Former President of Honduras Is Tried for Drug Trafficking” (The Economist (Uk), March 1, 2024).
- Colin Moynihan, “Ex-President Made Honduras a Safe Haven for Drug Gangs, Prosecutors Say” (The New York Times, February 21, 2024).
- David C. Adams, Jeff Ernst, “Murder, Corruption, and Drugs: The Ledgers That Could Sink Honduras’ Ex-President” (InsightCrime, February 9, 2024).
- Mike Lasusa, “Us Trial of Honduras Ex-President Spotlights Thorny Security Ties” (InsightCrime, February 6, 2024).
- Jennifer Ávila, “¿Podremos Sanar las Heridas Despues de Este Juicio?” (Contra Corriente, February 27, 2024).
- “Juan Orlando Hernandez: Modelo Ejemplar del Uso de la Institucionalidad del Estado para la Criminalidad Organizada” (Radio Progreso (Honduras), February 1, 2024).
- ““Joh” y “el Chapo” Guzman, una Sociedad de Millones de Dolares” (Radio Progreso (Honduras), February 20, 2024).
- Iolany Perez, “Joh: La Punta del Iceberg, el Narcotrafico Infiltrado en Multiples Sectores de Honduras (+Entrevista)” (Radio Progreso (Honduras), February 24, 2024).
- Marcia Perdomo, “Sobornos, Fraudes Electorales y Cooptacion de Instituciones Publicas para Proteger el Trasiego de Cocaina, en Juicio de Joh” (Criterio (Honduras), February 22, 2024).
- “Soborno y Conspiracion: Detalles del Ascenso de Joh en el Narcotrafico” (JOH Vs USA, Radio Progreso (Honduras), February 23, 2024).
- Luis Escalante, “Juicio Joh: Juan Orlando Hernandez Prometio a ‘los Cachiros’ Colaborar Con el Narcotrafico y Protegerlos” (Criterio (Honduras), February 27, 2024).
- Kelly Ortez, “Exfuncionarios de Hernandez: Entre la Carcel o la Fuga por Corrupcion y Narcotrafico” (Criterio (Honduras), February 21, 2024).
In the violent trafficking-hub city of Tocoa, along Honduras’s Caribbean coast near the conflictive Bajo Aguán region, longtime mayor Adán Fúnez stands accused of numerous drug trafficking crimes and human rights abuses, ContraCorriente reported. He remains solidly in power.
At journalist Ioan Grillo’s CrashOut, an essay from historian Benjamin T. Smith looked at Mexico’s three-stage transition, since the 1980s, from corrupt government “protection rackets” shaking down criminals, to today’s reality in which organized crime, having taken control of these “rackets,” now applies them to legitimate businesses and local governments.
The New York Times reported that the DEA had investigated possible contributions from narcotraffickers to the 2018 campaign of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and possible meetings with traffickers after López Obrador took office. This came on the heels of January allegations, revealed by ProPublica, that drug money may have gone into the President’s unsuccessful 2006 campaign.
Upon receiving word that the Times was working on the story, López Obrador retaliated by revealing the mobile phone number of the newspaper’s Mexico City bureau chief during his morning press conference. The White House stated that the U.S. government is not currently investigating López Obrador.
- Alan Feuer, Natalie Kitroeff, “U.S. Examined Allegations of Cartel Ties to Allies of Mexico’s President” (The New York Times, February 22, 2024).
- Mary Beth Sheridan, “Mexican President Lashes Out After Reports of Drug Cartel Investigations” (The Washington Post, February 22, 2024).
- Elias Camhaji, Macarena Vidal Liy, “United States Confirms That It Is Not Investigating Mexican President Lopez Obrador” (El Pais (Spain), February 23, 2024).
- Stephen Engelberg, “Mexican President Lopez Obrador Called Our Story “Slander” and Our Reporter a “Pawn.” Here Are Some Facts.” (ProPublica, February 9, 2024).
The U.S. Treasury Department alleged that politicians in San Marcos, Guatemala, near the Mexico border, have taken payments, via an organized crime structure called “Los Pochos,” from Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel to allow them to store drugs in border areas.
As Colombia awaits its Supreme Court’s approval of a new nominee to be the country’s chief prosecutor, the acting prosecutor, Martha Mancera, is under a cloud of allegations that she helped shield a former head of the judicial police (CTI) in Buenaventura, Colombia’s busiest port, from drug trafficking and arms trafficking charges.
The Colombian media outlet Vorágine reported on evidence that a former mayor of Buenavista, Córdoba, Félix Gutiérrez, has done business with the Gulf Clan, the country’s largest organized crime network. Gutiérrez is married to Representative Ana Paola García, a member of “La U,” one of Colombia’s “traditional” (less-ideological, machine-based) political parties.
Wiretaps revealed that Eberson Páucar Sacha alias “Padrino,” a top cocaine trafficker in Peru’s conflictive VRAEM (Apurímac, Ene, and Mantaro River Valleys) region, maintains close relations with police and prosecutors. This allowed him to spring relatives and accomplices from jail.