Former Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernández worked “hand-in-hand” with El Chapo’s Sinaloa Cartel and the notorious MS-13 gang to smuggle “massive amounts of cocaine” into the US for nearly a decade, the feds charged as his trial kicked off in New York court Wednesday.
Drug cartels fueled Hernández’s stint leading the Central American nation from 2014 through 2022 —showering him with millions in bribes, bankrolling his political campaigns and tampering with local elections to keep him in power, Manhattan federal prosecutor David Robles told jurors.
“This is a case about power. About corruption, about massive amounts of cocaine, and about the one man who stood at the center of all of it,” Robles said — before pointing at Hernández, who wore a suit and tie in his seat at the defense table in the packed courtroom.
“For years, he worked hand in hand with some of the most violent drug traffickers in Honduras to send ton after ton of cocaine to the US,” Robles charged during a 15-minute opening statement.
“He abused the power of his country, the military, the police, the justice system, to protect and support those traffickers.”
The former Honduras leader even brazenly bragged during his tenure that he would “shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos,” the prosecutor said. His supposed drug-fighting efforts even earned him the praise of then-President Donald Trump.
Hernández, 55, has been held at a Brooklyn federal lockup since his 2022 arrest and faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 40 years in prison if convicted on drug and weapons smuggling charges.
His lawyer, Renato Stabile, ripped the government for basing their case on the testimony of “depraved people” and “psychopaths” that together are responsible for dozens of murders.
“You will hear from government witnesses who have killed so many people,” Stabile said in his opening statement.
“The number of people they have killed is so high, that the number of people they have killed is probably more than everyone here in this courtroom right now,” Stabile added. “When they get up on the witness stand, please think of that.”
Stabile also tried to get ahead of photos expected to be introduced during the two-to-three-week-long trial showing Hernández posing with notorious drug smugglers.
A crowd of people — including sometimes drug dealers — often followed Hernández around during his time as president and asked for face time with him, the attorney said.
“The evidence will show that everywhere he goes people want photos of him, even drug dealers,” Stabile said.
The lawyer also argued that the amount of cocaine shipped through Honduras to the US actually decreased during Hernández’s time in power and that the ex-president had pushed through key changes — including making a new extradition deal with US authorities — that upset the cartels.
“Mr. Hernández does not sit down with drug dealers, he stands up to drug dealers” Stabile said, adding that the jury will hear later on in the trial about “assassination plots” made against Hernandez by cartels.
US authorities at time touted a close relationship with Hernández in the fight against drug smuggling during his tenure as president.
“President Hernandez is working with the United States very closely,” Trump said of Hernández in a 2019 speech.
“You know what’s going on our southern border,” Trump added at the time. “And we’re winning after years and years of losing. We’re stopping drugs at a level that has never happened.”