A drug trafficker and former leader of the Los Cachiros cartel testified Thursday in a trial that paid a $ 250,000 bribe in 2012 to Juan Orlando Hernandez, current president of Honduras, in exchange for protection from arrest.
Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga said in a New York court that he made the payment in cash to a sister of Hernández, named Hilda.
US prosecutors have mentioned the Honduran president several times in the trial and have assured that he accepted bribes in exchange for allowing drug trafficking in their country.
Rivera Maradiaga also testified that he paid bribes to former President José Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009) and current Vice President Ricardo Álvarez.
It was about half a million dollars to Zelaya in 2006, said the former Los Cachiros leader. To Álvarez it was the same approximate amount in 2012.
Regarding the alleged bribery of President Hernández, Rivera Maradiaga said that he made the payment to Hilda Hernández in exchange for “protection so that both the military and preventive police would not capture us in Honduras.”
He also said that he did it so as not to be extradited to the United States and so that Hernández would continue to favor contracts with Los Cachiros companies through which they did money laundering.
In 2012, Juan Orlando Hernández was president of Congress. That same year Álvarez was running, like Hernández, for president of the country. President Hernández has repeatedly denied accusations by US prosecutors and former drug traffickers who have accused him of being involved in drug trafficking. Hernández faces no charges.
Rivera Maradiaga made the explosive statements in the trial of Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez, a Honduran accused of drug trafficking.
Prosecutor Michael Lockard asked Rivera Maradiaga about the president in the eyes of Fuentes Ramírez and the 12 jurors in federal court in Manhattan.
“Did the Cachiros bribe Juan Orlando Hernández with drug money?” Lockard asked him.
“Yes, sir,” replied Rivera Maradiaga, who was dressed in a yellow prison uniform and handcuffed at the ankles.
Zelaya, Rivera Maradiaga said, was bribed to make a cousin of Rivera Maradiaga the country’s security minister. That did not happen, said the exCachiro. Álvarez was bribed to avoid extradition to the United States.
The drug trafficker also said that in 2013 he felt “cornered” because the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control mentioned the Cachiros: “They mentioned me, but not the other drug traffickers. They did not mention the corrupt politicians we had bribed. They did not mention the other drug traffickers who had worked with us. They did not mention the military who had worked with us as well. ”
Photographs of President Hernández, former President Zelaya and Vice President Alvarez were displayed in the courtroom as Rivera Maradiaga spoke of the alleged bribes given to each of them.
Shortly after, former President Zelaya reacted on his Twitter account and, about President Hernández, wrote: “The US imposed Joh as a dictator, knowing that he is a coup, and linked to looting and drug trafficking networks, regardless of the pain from town”.
Later he added another message on the same social network and said: “Irrefutable proof that I never received a bribe is that I never appointed a minister, neither of organized crime, nor due to pressure from the American embassy. ”
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