A journalistic investigation puts the president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, in a difficult position. The media InSight Crime The president revealed on Tuesday that the president’s brother-in-law, Carlos Zelaya, met in 2013 with a group of powerful drug traffickers who offered tens of thousands of dollars to help the current president, in her first campaign at that time for the Libre Party, come to power in the Central American country. Castro did not achieve victory at that time, but when she finally achieved victory and assumed the Honduran presidency in 2022, she promised to fight drug trafficking and corruption and rebuild a country that she described as a “national tragedy.” The president reacted on Tuesday night to the revelation through a television network and condemned “all types of negotiations between drug traffickers and politicians.” She also denounced an alleged plan to “deal a coup d’état” against her government.
Carlos Zelaya is the brother of former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted from power in a coup, detained by the Army and expelled to Costa Rica in 2009. The investigation into InSight Crime The report narrates that Carlos Zelaya met with “some of the biggest drug traffickers in Honduras.” According to the report, a 34-minute video recorded from a spy camera hidden in the watch of one of the drug traffickers reveals “clear enough images and audio” that “show the traffickers recalling past contributions, allegedly paid to former President Mel Zelaya, Castro’s husband, Carlos’ brother, and founder of the Libre Party.” Then, the investigation continues, “they decide how much they are going to give between them all.” Melan amount that they confirm with Zelaya when he arrives, before deciding how and when to deliver the money. Carlos also negotiates with the traffickers the rental of up to 10 vehicles for the party to use during the campaign.”
The president’s brother-in-law admitted that he traveled to San Pedro Sula, an industrial city located in the north of the country, at the invitation of a “group of businessmen” and spoke with the traffickers, according to InSight Crime. “It is not clear what led to Zelaya’s confession, but the surprising admission came shortly after the InSight Crime spoke to a person who was at the meeting. Even so, Zelaya, who also announced his resignation from Congress, said he only knew one of the people at the meeting. He also denied having received money from drug traffickers,” the media reports in its report.
President Castro called a national radio and television broadcast on Tuesday night to react to the journalistic investigation and denounced an alleged plan to damage her image and attack the Executive that she heads. “The plan to destroy my socialist, democratic government and the upcoming electoral process is underway. The same internal and external dark forces of 2009, with the complicity of the national and international corporate media, are reorganizing in our country to carry out a new coup d’état, which the people must repel,” said the president.
Castro has taken over a country mired in violence caused by bloodthirsty gangs that control vast regions and that maintain close collaboration with drug trafficking groups. The president had promised to take “drastic measures” to fight the violence that is bleeding her country dry and announced last summer a Police and military offensive against gangs similar to the harsh measures taken by El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, in his war against these criminal groups, which have generated strong criticism from human rights organizations. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) warned the government last May about the state of emergency: “Security cannot be in the hands of the Army.”
The president’s reaction comes amid tense relations with the United States, following a series of comments by the country’s ambassador in Tegucigalpa, Laura Dogu, who accused the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces, Roosevelt Hernández, and former Defense Minister José Manuel Zelaya, son of Carlos Zelaya and nephew of the president, who resigned last week due to his father’s alleged ties to drug traffickers, of being “drug traffickers.” President Castro has further strained the tension with Washington after deciding last Wednesday to end the bilateral extradition treaty she had with the United States.
The revelation of InSight Crime The video raises many questions about the influence of drug traffickers in the Castro administration, which took over the country after the controversial mandate of former President Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced by a New York court to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking. “The video is another surprising proof of the depth of the infiltration of drug traffickers in the political class of Honduras. It confirms long-standing suspicions that the current Honduran government party, like politicians like Hernández, was not immune to the influence of drug trafficking money just at the time when campaigns for the 2025 elections are intensifying,” analyzes the report by InSight Crimesigned by the reporters Jeff Ernst and David C. Adams.
The video, the journalists say in the report, begins with several men talking in the living room of a luxurious mansion. “It was recorded in November 2013. At that time, Devis and Javier Rivera led Los Cachiros, the most infamous drug trafficking group in the country, but they faced an unprecedented offensive by security forces at home and abroad. Honduras had recently approved a constitutional reform that paved the way for its citizens to be extradited on drug trafficking charges.”
This is how the journalists explain how they obtained the footage: “In September 2013, the United States Treasury Department sanctioned to the Cachiros, and shortly thereafter, Honduras seized millions of dollars in alleged group property. Anticipating a future indictment by the United States, and seeking to negotiate a possible cooperation agreement with American prosecutors, the Rivera brothers began recording their meetings with drug traffickers and politicians through spy cameras. InSight Crime received a copy of the video in which Carlos Zelaya appears from a source “who asked to remain anonymous” and confirmed its authenticity with other sources who knew about the document. The video shows that the Zelaya relative may have received more than half a million dollars from drug traffickers, although he has denied it. “All the help we are going to give him goes to Mel… the commitment with us is Mel,” says one of the drug traffickers.
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