The capture “is revenge for the president because his brother is imprisoned in the United States. They can look for me whatever they want, I have nothing to hide,” said the presidential candidate.
The Honduran authorities arrested this Thursday (11.04.2021) the presidential candidate Santos Rodríguez Orellana -a retired Army captain- accused of laundering drug money and participating in homicides, including that of an informant from the United States Anti-Drug Agency ( DEA).
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His arrest occurs less than a month before the presidential elections with his favorite competitors peppered with allegations of corruption and drug trafficking. So is the current president, Juan Orlando Hernández, who will leave office in 2022 after eight years in power.
Rodríguez, from the Independent Movement Dignity and Hope (MIDE), is required for “money laundering,” according to the Public Ministry (MP). In addition, a protected witness said that Rodríguez -in his functions as captain of the Armed Forces- “carried out operations (…) and when he found money or drugs, he did not declare it in its entirety, keeping part of the seized and confiscated weapons. they were taken to a criminal group called ZIPE “.
“According to witnesses, he is also involved in the death of many people, including an informant” from the DEA, the institution said. The Prosecutor’s Office said that he is also accused of negotiating deliveries of drugs that had been stolen from other criminal organizations and of giving the money for these operations to his wife and mother-in-law, detained together with Rodríguez. After making a review of the bank accounts of the detainees, it was evident that “the commercial activity carried out and registered with the income administration is not consistent with what was declared” before the treasury, the MP said.
Upon being apprehended, Rodríguez considered his detention “illegal” and rejected all the charges against him. “Am I in money laundering and drug trafficking? It is the president’s revenge because his brother is imprisoned in the United States. They can look for me whatever they want, I have nothing to hide,” he said in a video recorded by his collaborators.
In recent months, Rodríguez had assured that he was one of those who accused Tony Hernández of drug trafficking, former deputy and brother of the president, currently sentenced to life imprisonment for that crime in the United States. In October 2016, the Embassy of the States United in Tegucigalpa had warned that Santos Rodríguez was “under investigation due to his alleged links in drug trafficking and corruption activities.”