US motions implicate Honduran President in drug trade

(CMR) Motions filed by US prosecutors on Friday have implicated  Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández in drug trafficking.

However, the Honduran president, who has denied any connection with drug traffickers, has not been charged.

The motions said Hernández took bribes from drug traffickers and used his country's armed forces to protect a cocaine laboratory and shipments to the United States.

The motions did not specifically name the president; it referred to him as “CC-4,” or co-conspirator No. 4, but Henandez has been identified because his brother was named in the document, and reference was made to his post as president.

According to the documents, Hernández said he wanted to “'shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos' by flooding the United States with cocaine.”

The motions also repeated accusations that Hernández (54)  accepted more than $1 million from Mexican drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

The documents were filed to seek pretrial approval to admit evidence in the case of Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez, who was arrested in Miami last March.

Fuentes Ramires allegedly conspired with high-ranking Honduran politicians and arm forces to operate a cocaine lab and distribute cocaine by air and sea.

He and other traffickers paid bribes to public officials and the police for protection from law enforcement interference and to facilitate the safe passage of multi-ton loads of cocaine through Honduras.

The motions filed Friday also accused Fuentes Ramires of producing hundreds of kilograms of cocaine monthly and having several people killed to protect his illicit business.

According to the motion, a witness who is also a drug trafficker would testify that traffickers were paying massive bribes to the president in exchange for protection from law enforcement and extradition to the United States and that he accepted approximately $1million  from the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín Guzmán Loera.