Media: US anti-drug agents also involved in arrest of ex-Honduran leader

Agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), who previously detained Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, also took part in the arrest and subsequent prosecution of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, Caliber.Az reports, citing Russian media.

In February 2022, the DEA, working in coordination with Honduran law enforcement, arrested Hernández at his residence. He was later extradited to the United States.

Two years after his arrest, Hernández was sentenced by a US court to 45 years in prison on charges related to drug trafficking and firearms offences. Investigators stated that Hernández, who served as president of the Central American nation from 2014 to 2022, was implicated in the smuggling of at least 400 tons of cocaine into the United States.

In December 2025, Hernández was released from the high-security Hazelton federal prison in the United States after receiving a pardon from US President Donald Trump.

President Trump escalated the US drug war in dramatic fashion on January 3, ordering the removing Venezuela's president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who were quickly charged with narcotics trafficking by the US Justice Department.

But the stunning military action comes at a time when Trump has also freed or pardoned other convicted drug dealers and people accused of ties to drug gangs and cartels - notably the former president of Honduras.

Venezuela's Maduro and Flores face charges of "drug trafficking and narco-terrorism conspiracies," according to an indictment made public by US Attorney General Pam Bondi. "They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts," Bondi said in a post on social media.

The Justice Department charged Maduro in March 2020, during Trump's first administration, in connection with alleged narcoterrorism and drug smuggling into the United States.

That indictment alleged Maduro was the leader of the Cartel de los Soles, and that he and other defendants took part in a narco-terrorism conspiracy with the Colombian guerrilla group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

By Vafa Guliyeva