Honduran lawmaker pleads guilty to drug charges in US
Updated 3:46 pm CST, Tuesday, December 11, 2018
MEXICO CITY (AP) — A former Honduran lawmaker who pleaded guilty to drug trafficking conspiracy and violence charges in a United States federal court faces at least 40 years in prison.
Court records from the Southern District of New York show that Fredy Najera Montoya submitted a guilty plea Monday to two of the three charges he faced.
Federal prosecutors say Najera ran a drug trafficking operation that moved South American cocaine for Mexico's Sinaloa cartel and worked with other drug trafficking organizations in Honduras. The congressman used clandestine landing strips on his properties to land cocaine-laden planes from Colombia then moved the drugs north to the Guatemalan border.
Honduras has become a major transshipment point for South American cocaine headed to the U.S. Corrupt security forces and large swaths of sparsely populated rural areas and coastlines made it attractive for drug trafficking organizations, which often shipped drugs in small planes or boats and then sent them overland through Guatemala and Mexico.
More:
https://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Honduran-lawmaker-pleads-guilty-to-drug-charges-13457415.php
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Wikipedia:
Fredy Renán Nájera Montoya (born 11 January 1977) is a Honduran politician. He currently serves as deputy of the National Congress of Honduras representing the Liberal Party of Honduras for Olancho.[1]
In early 2013 Nájera was accused of homicide.[2]
Google translation from La Tribuna, in Honduras:
"Cachiro" linked Deputy Nájera with the death of the "Drug Czar"
20 JAN, 2018 - 5:00 A.M.
"Cachiro" linked Deputy Nájera with the death of the "Drug Czar"
Fredy Renán Nájera Montoya, deputy from Olancho.
The Deputy of the Liberal Party, Fredy Renán Nájera, was accused in the United States (USA) of the crimes related to drug trafficking and the transfer of arms.
The United States Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York released the accusation of conspiracy to import cocaine and the transfer of arms.
Honduran congressman accused of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States and related firearms offenses
Geoffrey S. Berman, federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, and Raymond Donovan, the special agent in charge of the Special Operations Division of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), announced that Honduran congressman Fredy Renán Nájera Montoya was indicted on Friday in Manhattan federal court to conspire to import cocaine into the United States and weapons offenses related to the use and possession of machine guns and destructive devices.
. . .
In the statement, the US Attorney's Office maintains that, "as alleged in the Supreme Indictment presented in a federal court, from 2009 to 2014, several drug trafficking organizations in Honduras and elsewhere worked together, and with Fredy's support. Nájera and others, to receive loads of cocaine of hundreds of kilos sent to Honduras from, among other places, Colombia, through air and maritime routes, and to transport drugs westward in Honduras, towards the border with Guatemala and, finally , towards the United States. "
"To protect themselves from official interference and to facilitate the safe passage, through Honduras, of cocaine loads of several hundred kilograms, the drug traffickers paid bribes to public officials, including some members of the Honduran National Congress," says the Prosecutor's Office in your official communication.
They add that, "Nájera is a member of the Honduran National Congress that participated and supported the drug trafficking activities of the large-scale drug traffickers in Honduras and the high-ranking members of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico."
They accuse that "for example, Nájera facilitated the reception of cocaine-laden airplanes on clandestine airstrips in Honduras that were protected by heavily armed security personnel so that cocaine could be transported through Honduras, sold to the Sinaloa cartel and imported. to the United States".
"Nájera also participated in a maritime cocaine trafficking company that involved a $ 50,000 bribe paid to Fabio Porfirio Lobo, whose father was the president of Honduras at the time of payment. On September 5, 2017, in the United States, District Judge Lorna G. Schofield sentenced Lobo primarily to 24 years in prison, based on his conviction, for participating in a conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States. " .
http://www.latribuna.hn/2018/01/20/cachiro-relaciono-al-diputado-najera-la-muerte-del-zar-antidrogas/