New York, United States.
Devis Leonel Rivera, Excap of the Honduran cartel Els Cachiros, said this Thursday in the trial that follows Geovanny Fonts Ramirez, who bribed the current president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, To its Vice President Ricardo Álvarez and the former president Manuel Zelaya in exchange for protection.
Rivera explained that the Cachiros gave to Hilda Hernandez, sister of the president Juan Orlando Hernandez, $ 250,000 in cash in 2012, when he was a congressman and candidate for the presidency, in exchange for “protection that we would not be captured in Honduras, both the military police and the preventive police,” that I and my hemano would not be extradited (Javier) in the United States and that Joan Orlando Hernández would continue to give us contracts to launder money from drug trafficking, ”Rivera said in a lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan.
New York’s southern district prosecutors consider Honduras’ president a “co-conspirator” of alleged drug trafficker Geovanny Fonts in trafficking tons of cocaine to the United States, but Hernandez denies all charges.
related: Prosecutor accuses Honduran president of helping to traffic tons of cocaine in the US
Rivera also said that in 2014, when Hernandez was already president, he handed over $ 50,000 in cash at a Tegucigalpa restaurant to his brother Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernandez because he “promised contracts for Inrimar,” a cover company for Els Cachiros. to launder money. Tony Hernandez was found guilty of drug trafficking in New York in 2019 and his sentence is scheduled for March 23.
Rivera, a cooperating witness in the Geovanny Fonts trial that began Monday in New York, also reported that he paid half a million dollars to the vice president and former mayor of Tegucigalpa Ricardo Álvarez in 2012, when he was a candidate for the presidency of Honduras, in exchange for “giving us protection so that my brother Javier and I would not be captured in Honduras.”
Alvarez “promised to repeal Honduras’ extradition law to the United States” and new government contracts for Los Cachiros front companies, said Rivera, a drug chief who has confessed to 78 murders and worked for at the US anti-drug agency DEA in Honduras 2:00 years, until it was handed over to US authorities in 2015.
Read: President Hernandez: “I will continue to fight drug trafficking until my last day in the presidency”
El Cachiro said they also bribed with half a million dollars from drug trafficking to former President Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009) in 2006, in exchange for “putting a cousin of mine as Minister of Security,” Rivera told the jury, but “in the end that didn’t happen,” the excapo said. , dressed in a yellow prisoner suit and with chained ankles.
The leader of Els Cachiros also revealed that the Government of Porfirio “Pepe” Llop (2010-2014) helped Els Cachiros to launder money. “He gave us several road contracts. The Pepe Lobo government paid us with checks from the Honduran government and so the money from the drug trafficking was laundered,” he said.
The U.S. Attorney General’s Office, as it did during the trial of Honduran President Tony Hernandez’s brother in late 2019 in New York, argues that Honduras is a “narco-state.”
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Following what was assured by Devis Maradiaga, the former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya he spared no hesitation in distorting such indications.
“There is a contradiction in the testimony because in 2006 I was not in a political campaign, I was already President, I recognize that I had pressure from the US Embassy and other sectors to appoint certain characters, but it never happened and neither there were bribes, “Zelaya said.
“When I was President we were leading the Liberal Party, at that time there were deputies and leaders of Columbus who brought me personalities by recommendation, but it never involved bribes. With them (Els Cachiros) I have never dealt, I only know what has been said in the media, what he (Devis Maradiaga) says is false, I don’t have to deny something that doesn’t make sense, “he insisted.
Meanwhile, the president Juan Orlando Hernández has described the testimonies of Els Cachiros and other drug traffickers as “obvious lies and in full contradiction to the facts.”
The Honduran ruler has reiterated that drug traffickers under trial in the United States are seeking through “their false witnesses,” lowering their sentences and at the same time “taking revenge,” thinking that “their lies” may work for them as a “magic key”.
“The narcos give their sworn word that the narcos bought total impunity, but within 10 days of my election, The Cachiros decided to leave their empire and negotiate their surrender in the USA,” the ruler stressed.
Ricardo Álvarez he denied having any ties to Devis Maradiaga or anyone else accused of drug trafficking, “I have nothing to hide, as I can check the legality of my income and remain at the disposal of the country authorities.”