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President Juan Orlando Hernández during a speech in 2019. Shutterstock/Marco Vasquez

President of Honduras helped smuggle tonnes of cocaine into United States, prosecutor alleges

A witness claims the president said “they’d transport so much cocaine into the US they’d shove the drugs up the noses of the gringos.”

HONDURAN PRESIDENT JUAN Orlando Hernandez helped smuggle tonnes of cocaine into the United States, a US prosecutor said today 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 Hernandez in meetings in 2013 and 2014, the prosecutor said. 

Hernandez, who denies all the allegations against him, has been in power since January 2014. 

Accountant Jose Sanchez, who was at those meetings, will tell the jury “the shock, the fear he felt when he saw the defendant sitting with the president,” said Gutwillig. 

Sanchez worked at a rice-growing company through which the defendant laundered money, the prosecutor alleged. 

This witness will tell the jury that the president told Fuentes “that they’d transport so much cocaine into the US they’d shove the drugs up the noses of the gringos,” said Gutwillig.

Defense attorney Eylan Schulman tried to discredit what the witness allegedly plans to tell the jury. “Supposedly $25,000 is all it costs to bribe a president,” said Schulman. 

Sanchez, said Schulman, “has a lot to gain and little to lose. He has an asylum application pending with the immigration service.” 

The defense also told the jury that it should not believe the testimony to be given by “one of the most vicious murderers to ever walk on this Earth,” Leonel Rivera, former leader of the Honduran cartel Los Cachiros, who killed 78 people, tried to kill 15 others and is imprisoned in the United States for drug trafficking. 

“The (US) government agreed to make a deal with this devil … he should never be believed,” Schulman said. 

US prosecutors consider Hernandez to be a co-conspirator of Fuentes in smuggling tonnes of cocaine to the US but they have not charged him. 

The president’s brother, Tony Hernandez was convicted of large-scale drug trafficking at a New York trial in 2019. The sentencing in that case has been delayed several times and is now scheduled for 23 March. 

The brother could be sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors say he was the middle man between accused trafficker Fuentes and the president. 

The trial’s first witness, US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Brian Fairbanks, told the jury he found Hernandez’s email address and cell phone number on the defendant’s phone. 

The prosecution also showed the jury photos of Fuentes’ brother and son with Hernandez that were found on his phone. And it showed photos of several weapons found on the iCloud account of one of Fuentes’ sons – including an automatic rifle it said was offered as a gift to Hernandez with his initials and title inscribed above the trigger. 

Yesterday Hernandez tweeted that witnesses at the trial were set to give “false testimony” against him.

© – AFP, 2021

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    Mute John Fahy
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    Jul 29th 2020, 2:39 PM

    More supervisors, less frontline Gardaí.

    204
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    Mute Isabel Oliveira
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    Jul 29th 2020, 2:46 PM

    To go to the airport , pubs & house parties ?

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    Mute filthypete
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    Jul 29th 2020, 4:59 PM

    @Isabel Oliveira: everyone else is doing it so why can’t they!

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    Mute 8-Bit-Relic
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    Jul 29th 2020, 3:15 PM

    They don’t have a ‘money tree’ for social interests but happy to stock policing up by huge numbers.

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    Mute Jonny
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    Jul 29th 2020, 3:52 PM

    They’ve had it easy the last months, stopping cars who dared to travel beyond the sacred 5km, going around pubs and ordering the staff to close, etc

    56
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    Mute Rocky
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    Jul 29th 2020, 4:13 PM

    @Jonny: yep. easy job. That’s why everyone does it? Get a clue

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    Mute Jonny
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    Jul 29th 2020, 4:16 PM

    @Rocky: I haven’t even mentioned corruption, rotten to the core from top to bottom

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    Mute Canyon
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    Jul 29th 2020, 5:11 PM

    @Jonny: all 15000 of them? Me thinks you have issues you are not disclosing

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    Mute Jonny
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    Jul 29th 2020, 6:13 PM

    @Canyon: nope not all of them but a large portion are and that cannot be denied.

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    Mute Ger Murphy
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    Jul 29th 2020, 6:24 PM

    @Jonny: Please, please, please do reveal all. When is the book coming out??

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    Mute Pat Casey
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    Jul 29th 2020, 7:52 PM

    @Jonny: you are delusional …..trying to enforce laws..,out of their control

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    Mute Geoff Bateman
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    Jul 29th 2020, 3:57 PM

    More paper pushers…. Need them on the beat not stuck in the office

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    Mute John Mc Donagh
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    Jul 29th 2020, 4:30 PM

    The old adage about “Too many chies and too few Indians ” comes to mind!

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    Mute Pat Casey
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    Jul 29th 2020, 7:54 PM

    Great to see….what’s wrong with this?

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    Mute feargal ‘2 metres’ de cantuin
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    Jul 29th 2020, 5:38 PM

    I’m wondering what powers and decisions previously made at superintendent rank will be devolved to inspectors and whether warrants phone taps and public order management decisions will be given less serious scrutiny. Will more bodies be put in place for community scrutiny and Garda oversight?

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    Mute Eugene Comaskey
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    Jul 29th 2020, 7:53 PM

    @feargal ‘2 metres’ de cantuin: Im sure I read somewhere the Number of Chiefs and Supts is to be reduced significantly . Only 2 Supts in each Division, with Inspectors in charge of Districts. I think that is what Harris said some time ago.

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    Mute JP Pilibin
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    Jul 30th 2020, 1:43 AM

    It never stops ~ More pen pushers or PC tappers and no Gardai on the ground ~ More of ~ I made , I showed , I saved , I proved , I organised , And most of all I performed the most perfect covering of my own a#al gland !

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