New York, United States.
The US federal prosecutor’s office is open Tuesday the lawsuit against alleged Honduran drug trafficker Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez who assures him that he has worked with the country’s current president for many years, Juan Orlando Hernandez, and Honduras describes it as a “narco-state”. The Honduran president has rejected the allegations and all ties to Fuentes Ramírez and the drug trade.
According to prosecutors, Fuentes Ramírez served one huge distribution of cocaine thanks to the violence and his connections with the police, the military and the political class, “including the current president of Honduras.”
In its first argument, the prosecution assured that the alleged drug trafficker was linked to Hernández in 2013when he ran for president, and that together they planned to “send as much cocaine as possible to the United States.”
Related: A witness’s wife was threatened by a son of Geovanny Fuentes
Prosecutors had already raised alleged links between Fuentes Ramírez and the Honduran president in previously filed documents, but this Tuesday they made it clear that this relationship will be an important part of their case.
“The accused was a fundamental part of a Honduran narco-state,” said a representative of the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, who announced that during the trial evidence of ‘secret encounters’ that the alleged trafficker and the Honduran president will be presented. in 2013 and 2014.
At one such meeting, according to prosecutors, Hernández stated that he intended “to put drugs up the gringos’ noses,” referring to the alleged willingness to send large amounts of cocaine to the United States.
According to them, the Honduran president received bribes from Fuentes Ramírez and access to his cocaine lab and in return promised him protection and cooperation.
Lea: President Hernández: “I will continue the fight against drug trafficking until my last day in office”
So far, Hernández has at all times denied any involvement, something he reiterated via Twitter on Monday in a series of messages in which he also sent a warning to Washington.
The Honduran president assured that he will maintain the “international alliance in the fight against drug trafficking” until the end of his tenure, but warned that as drug traffickers “with the magic key of lies earn benefits from the United States through false testimony, the an international alliance with Honduras would later collapse with several countries ”.
Juan Orlando Hernández has been a close ally of the United States since 2014, first with President Barack Obama and later from 2017 to January of this year with Donald Trump.
Also: The president of Honduras assures drug traffickers give “false testimony” against him
His brother Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, also involved in this drug trafficking case, according to the United States, was already convicted in October 2019 in the United States for drug and arms trafficking.
Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez, 50, was arrested in Miami a year ago and pleaded not guilty to allegations of cocaine trafficking and illegal possession of weapons.
In his first argument, the defendant’s defense sought to discredit the witnesses that the prosecution plans to present by ensuring that there are several criminals among them who are merely seeking favorable treatment from the US authorities.