The Honduran Prosecutor’s Office confiscated eight properties and other assets from former police officer Mauricio Hernández Pineda, cousin of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who is accused of drug trafficking in the United States, the institution reported on Monday.
Through the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Organized Crime and the Technical Agency for Criminal Investigation, “four home searches were carried out in [the departments of] Cortés and Copán” and “seizures of 37 assets considered to be of illicit origin,” the statement said.
Eight properties, two vehicles, and 27 financial products (bank accounts or deposits) were seized in the police operation called “El Primo” and “were registered in the name of Mauricio Hernández Pineda, who pleaded guilty in the Southern District Court of New York, United States, on February 2, 2024, to charges related to drug trafficking,” it added.
The New York Prosecutor’s Office accused Hernández Pineda, along with his cousin – the former president (2014-2022) – and Juan Carlos Bonilla, former director of the Honduran National Police, of conspiring to traffic cocaine from producing countries in South America to the United States.
The drug transportation was carried out in conjunction with the Mexican Sinaloa cartel, which was then led by drug lord Joaquín “el Chapo” Guzmán, who was sentenced to life in prison in the United States for the same crime, according to witnesses at the trial against former President Hernández.
The trial against Hernández began on February 12 in New York and continues this week.
The New York Court had decided to unify the trial against the three Hondurans, but Hernández Pineda and Bonilla pleaded guilty, so only the former president was brought to trial. The high court will pass sentence on Hernández Pineda on May 2 and on Bonilla on June 25.
Honduras sent prosecutors to the trial in New York for “the exercise of criminal actions” against the Hondurans who are convicted, according to the statement from the Prosecutor’s Office.
