Former Honduran police director Juan Carlos Bonilla, whose extradition is being sought by the United States, which accuses him of drug trafficking, was arrested on Wednesday March 9, a police source said.
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Juan Carlos ““
The Tiger
”
Bonilla has been captured.
Elements of the police special forces stopped him at the Zambrano tollbooth
,” north of the capital, police spokeswoman Rebeca Martínez told AFP.
Bonilla, director of the police between 2012 and 2013, had been cited as a "
co-conspirator
" of former deputy Juan Antonio "
Tony
Hernández in the trial in which the younger brother of former President Juan Orlando Hernandez was sentenced in March 2021 to life imprisonment in the Court of Justice for the Southern District of New York.
Since May 2021, the United States had requested Bonilla's extradition.
In statements to the local press, Bonilla at the time denied the charges brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Geoffrey Berman.
His arrest comes three weeks after that of former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, also claimed by Washington for drug trafficking.
The 53-year-old former president (2014-2022) is incarcerated at the police special forces command headquarters in eastern Tegucigalpa.
On February 14, the United States requested the arrest and extradition of the former right-wing leader, accused of complicity in the export of approximately 500 tons of cocaine to the American market since 2004.
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The head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, revealed on February 7 that Juan Orlando Hernandez appeared, since July 1, 2021, on a list of people accused by the United States of corruption or attacks on democracy in Central America. .
Juan Orlando Hernandez left power on January 27 after two terms as head of Honduras, replaced by left-wing president Xiomara Castro.
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