US Prosecutor’s Office reveals gang payments and electoral fraud by Juan Orlando Hernández

By Sebastián Osorio Idárraga

In a new court filing, US prosecutors described how former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH) allegedly used drug money not only to finance his 2013 and 2017 campaigns but also to “corrupt the electoral process” and “fraudulently win” an election.

The former Honduran president was extradited to the United States on April 21, 2022, accused of three crimes related to drug and arms trafficking.

Days later, on May 10, Hernández pleaded not guilty to all charges and complained about the conditions in which he was being held.

Hernández (54) remains in a Brooklyn jail awaiting his trial scheduled for September 2023.

In evidence made public Tuesday, scheduled to be presented at trial, prosecutors say JOH paid a National Party official to pay gang members to incite and commit acts of violence in the protests that erupted in rejection of the election results that gave Hernández a 1% lead over Salvador Nasralla, who initially held the lead with 57% of the votes counted, according to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) tally.

As a result, numerous violent clashes between protesters and security forces resulted in many deaths, the Prosecutor General’s Office documents note.

Before the 2017 elections, no president had run for reelection in Honduras because provisions of its constitution limit individuals to serve one presidential term.

In 2015, however, the CSJ – which Juan Orlando controlled – issued a ruling that declared this reelection bans constitutional and not applicable to presidential elections.

The judicial decision, which de facto eliminated presidential term limits, was strongly contested in Honduras.

According to the 90+ page document from the US Prosecutor’s Office, during Juan Orlando’s reelection campaign, his drug trafficking accomplices again provided millions of dollars of narcotics to ensure that he remained in power and that the cocaine operation would remain protected.

THE US CHARGES AGAINST JOH

The United States explicitly accuses Hernández of accepting millions of dollars in bribes from drug traffickers since 2004, specifically from the Sinaloa Cartel, led at the time by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán since 2012.

His brother, Juan Antonio ‘Tony’ Hernández, was found guilty of drug trafficking charges on October 18, 2019.

In the trial, it was learned that he used the millions of dollars he earned through drug trafficking and bribes to help finance the Honduran National Party, led by his brother Juan Orlando.

This included a US$1 million bribe from former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

Although JOH pledged to cooperate with US counter-narcotics operations in exchange for economic aid to Honduras, Tony was also found to have tipped off drug traffickers about US-led night raids.

Herná dez was accused of ordering the murder of several people.

On March 30, 2021, Tony was sentenced to life in prison by US District Judge P. Kevin Castel, who is also assigned to the case of Juan Orlando and Juan Carlos “Tigre” Bonilla, who served as director of the Honduran National Police between 2012 and 2013, and who was extradited in May 2022 to face drug and weapons charges in a scheme similar to that of the former Honduran president.

ACCEPTED BRIBES FROM DRUG TRAFFICKERS

Juan Orlando’s political career spanned more than 20 years. In 1998, Juan Orlando was elected as a congressman for Lempira.

According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, by 2005, while still a congressman, he accepted tens of thousands of dollars in bribes from Victor Hugo Diaz Morales, a Honduran drug trafficker who now cooperates with the government.

Instead, Tony Hernandez and his associates provided Diaz Morales with law enforcement information to facilitate drug shipments.

For example, he reported on Honduran Navy operations; US efforts to train Honduran Air Force pilots to fly at night to conduct counternarcotics operations; military radar capabilities so that cocaine shipments on airplanes avoid detection, and interdiction efforts by certain National Police officials.

Based in part on information in exchange for his bribes, Diaz Morales and Tony Hernandez worked together to transport 140,000 kilograms of cocaine bound for the US through Honduras between 2004 and 2016.

Not a single kilogram of that 140,000 was seized by Honduran police.

Diaz Morales was also never investigated or arrested by Honduran authorities despite being widely known to be a ruthless drug trafficker, who has now admitted, as part of his cooperation, his involvement in 18 murders.

In 2009, Juan Orlando began a campaign to become president of the Honduran National Congress.

Porfirio Lobo Sosa, “Pepe Lobo,” his close political ally and a member of the National Party, began campaigning to become president of Honduras.

Together they worked to obtain US$2 million in drug trafficking profits for their respective campaigns from Amílcar Alexander Ardón Soriano, the mayor of El Paraíso, who turned himself in to US authorities in 2019 after learning of the allegations against him for this crime.

With information from Bloomberg