A former head of the Honduran National Police who was sought by US prosecutors on drug and weapons charges was arrested on Wednesday, the government said.
Juan Carlos Bonilla Valladares was director of the National Police in 2012 and 2013. Better known as “El Tigre,” or “The Tiger,” Bonilla faced allegations of human rights abuses during his time in command.
Honduran Minister of Security Ramon Sabillon confirmed Bonilla’s arrest on Wednesday afternoon at a toll plaza on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa.
Photo: Reuters
A high-ranking police official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the arrest, said that Bonilla had been under surveillance by a police intelligence unit. The official added that the arrest came in response to a US extradition request.
The US in May last year requested Bonilla’s arrest and extradition on drug and weapons charges. Prosecutors labeled him a coconspirator of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez and the president’s brother, Tony Hernandez. The case has developed over years in the Southern District of New York.
A spokeswoman from the US Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
Juan Orlando Hernandez is awaiting a determination of a Honduran judge on a US extradition request also from the Southern District of New York on drug trafficking and weapons charges.
US prosecutors in Manhattan announced charges against Bonilla in April 2020, alleging that he used his law enforcement clout to protect US-bound shipments of cocaine. Bonilla denied at the time being a drug trafficker.
He said then that he would go wherever necessary to prove the accusations untrue and suggested that drug traffickers were behind the accusations. He held up his long cooperation with the US Department of State as proof he was someone the US government trusted.
Then-US attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman said at the time that Bonilla played a key role in a violent international drug conspiracy, working on behalf of former Honduran lawmaker Tony Hernandez and Juan Orlando Hernandez.
“Bonilla Valladares oversaw the transshipment of multi-ton loads of cocaine bound for the US, used machine guns and other weaponry to accomplish that, and participated in extreme violence, including the murder of a rival trafficker,” Berman said in a statement in 2020.
Bonilla was appointed director of the National Police in May 2012 by then-Honduran president Porfirio Lobo. He was removed when Juan Orlando Hernandez became president.
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