Former Honduran police chief Juan Carlos “Tigre” Bonilla was sentenced Thursday to 19 years in prison for drug trafficking in a court in New York, United States, after pleading guilty to drug trafficking and thus avoiding sitting in the same trial as former president Juan Orlando Hernández.
Dressed in a prison uniform and with his feet chained, the 65-year-old defendant asked the judge to have “mercy” on him considering his age, his state of health and that he has grandchildren and a five-year-old daughter whom he wants to “hug” again.
In his plea agreement, Bonilla admitted to having helped traffic more than 450 kilos of cocaine between 2003 and 2016 through Honduran territory, sent from Colombia and Venezuela by sea and air, and destined for the United States.
Extradited to the United States on May 10, 2022, Bonilla was “a key participant in one of the largest cocaine trafficking conspiracies in the world,” prosecutors said, accusing him of “abusing his position” at the head of the Honduran National Police (PNH) to “facilitate cocaine trafficking” in exchange for money.
Specifically, by providing “armed protection for mountains of cocaine traveling through Honduras, directing other corrupt agents under his command to protect those shipments, and providing sensitive information to law enforcement in support of his cocaine trafficking.”
In exchange, the accused received “lucrative bribes and was promoted within the PNH with the support of his powerful political allies, Juan Orlando and Tony Hernández,” according to a statement from the prosecution.
Bonilla is also accused of killing rival drug lord Franklin Arita and protecting members of the dangerous MS-13 gang.
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