Juan Orlando Hernández, who was president of Honduras for eight years, was extradited to New York on Thursday to face charges of engineering an enormous effort to flood the United States with cocaine.
The uncommon extradition of a former head of state adopted Hernández’s arrest in February at his house in Tegucigalpa lower than a month after he stepped down from workplace. The Justice Department accused him of taking part in a violent drug trafficking operation that shipped 500 tons of cocaine from Venezuela and Colombia to the U.S. via Honduras.
“We allege that Hernández corrupted legitimate public institutions in the country — including parts of the national police, military, and national Congress,” stated Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday. “And we allege that Hernández worked closely with other public officials to protect cocaine shipments bound for the United States. Because of these alleged crimes, communities in the United States suffered, and the people of Honduras suffered.”
The charges stated he obtained tens of millions of {dollars} for shielding drug traffickers from arrest, and for facilitating their shipments.
Hernández, 53, took bribes from some of the world’s most infamous drug traffickers, together with $1 million from El Chapo, the previous head of the Sinaloa Cartel, “to protect his operations in Honduras,” stated Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, the place Hernández will likely be prosecuted.
A grand jury indictment unsealed Thursday stated Hernández used the cash “to enrich himself, finance his political campaigns, and commit voter fraud,” together with in reference to the 2013 and 2017 Honduran presidential elections.
He “abused his position as the president of Honduras to operate the country as a narco-state, in order to enrich himself and corruptly gain and maintain power,” the charges stated.
The former president stated on social media this 12 months that the U.S. charges had been based mostly on the claims of “drug traffickers and confessed assassins who were extradited by my government.”
A Honduran decide dominated final month that Hernández could possibly be extradited to the U.S.
Juan Antonio Hernández, the previous president’s brother, was sentenced to life in jail final 12 months after being convicted for drug trafficking and weapons violations. During that trial, federal prosecutors stated then-President Hernández agreed to use his nation’s army forces to present safety for drug traffickers.
The extradition of Hernández marks one of the few occasions a former head of state has been introduced to the U.S. to face charges. In 1990, Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was arrested on drug trafficking charges throughout a U.S. army operation. He was convicted in federal courtroom in Miami. Noriega died in 2017 at Hospital Santo Tomas in Panama City. He was 83.
Michael Kosnar contributed.