By: Staff Writer
August 29, 2023
A mayor in Honduras was arrested on drug trafficking charges for having sent 90 tonnes of cocaine to the US by boat and by plane by cooperating with three drug cartels.
Mayor Wilmer Manolo Wood of Brus Laguna, in the remote Mosquitia region that borders Nicaragua, was taken into custody, said Jorge Galindo, a spokesperson for the Honduran prosecutors’ office. He is accused of working with three cartels: Los Piningos, Los Yanez and Los Amador.
Jaime López, an alleged member of Los Piningos, was also arrested on drug trafficking charges.
Wood allegedly became involved with illegal drugs and money 15 years ago, moving it from the Caribbean department of Gracias a Dios to the departments of Colón and Atlántida
Neither Wood nor his lawyers were immediately available for comment.
Reports say that independently of the three cartels, Wood personally received 30 tonnes of cocaine and moved it through Honduras so it could be transported to the US.
He is said to have gone out on his own in 2014 and started working closely with the three cartels in the region, receiving drug shipments from South America, notably Colombia.
The public ministry said that there were 15 incidents in which Wood received cocaine from Colombia that were smuggled in speedboats that he docked in Brus Laguna and the neighbouring city of Ebans. The drugs were then moved on to other cities.
Local authorities believe Mexican drug cartels supplying the US bring cocaine through Central America and Mexico after it is carried from Colombia by boat or plane to the Mosquitia region and other parts of Honduras’ Atlantic coast.
Wood faces extradition to the US where he could be facing US federal charges where he may be facing life behind US bars.
Honduras has long been known as a key transit zone for South American cocaine ultimately destined for the United States. But corruption now appears to have enabled trafficking directly within indigenous communities rather than just through them.
The revelations come as newly inaugurated Honduran President Xiomara Castro has vowed to crack down on cartels that have corrupted law enforcement and politics. Last year, former president Juan Orlando Hernández was extradited to the U.S. on charges of smuggling 500 tons of cocaine with help from state institutions.