Tegucigalpa.
Five immigrants from Cuba were detained in the Choluteca department in southern Honduras, as well as three suspected human traffickers who accompanied them, Honduran police said on Sunday.
The arrest, according to a statement a Honduran police, took place in the municipality of Namasigüe, Choluteca, on the border with Nicaragua, when immigrants were traveling in two vehicles driven by traffickers, known as “coyotes“.
The detained Hondurans, aged 38 and 41, have been brought to justice and will be charged with the crimes of “illegal trafficking in human beings and taking internal bribes“he added.
The men were captured by agents of the Transnational Criminal Investigation Unit (ICU) of Police Investigation Directorate (DPI) and Border police, in Namasigüe.
Police said Hondurans had moved immigrants from Choluteca, southern Honduras, to the Guatemalan border to continue their journey to the United States.
“These individuals, after noticing that they will be detained, offered the officers 20,000 lempiras ($ 826) in exchange for their release,” the official said. Honduran police.
The Cubans are detained in an office of the National Institute for Migration in Choluteca, where the authorities will decide whether to grant them a permit to cross the national territory or return them to their country of origin.
In recent decades, the Central American country has become a transit point for migrants, especially Cubans and Africans, crossing Central American countries to reach the United States, whose authorities have strengthened security in recent years on the border with Mexico.
Honduras signed an agreement with the United States in September 2019 aimed at stopping irregular migration from Central American countries.
According to the cooperation agreement launched in May last year by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS, in English), the governments of Honduras and the United States have agreed to send asylum seekers to the Central American country to the United States authorities.
The document joins the two similar cooperation agreements reached on asylum Guatemala, on July 26, 2019 and El Salvador, respectively, on September 20 last year.