Part of the landscape Latin America is widely known to be home to some of the most powerful criminal organizations in the world, but the region’s criminal ecosystem is dominated by state-embedded actors, many of whom protect and profit from illicit economies. January 28, 2022
JOSEFINA SALOMÓN When former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández’s name came up in the March 2021 US trial of notorious drug trafficker Geovanny Fuentes, few were surprised. The prosecutor described the Central American country as a ‘narco-state’, explaining how cartels had infiltrated ‘police, military and political power’. Their influence extended to ‘mayors, congressmen, military generals and police chiefs, even the current president’. The same month also saw the sentencing (to life in prison) of Hernández’s brother (and former congressman), Antonio ‘Tony’ Hernández on drug trafficking charges. Hernández was found guilty of aiding the smuggling of 185 tonnes of cocaine from Colombia into the US, sometimes in collaboration with Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán’s Sinaloa Cartel. Page 26
While the former Honduran president continues to deny any wrongdoing, he now faces the prospect of potential extradition to the US after his party lost the November 2021 general election, stripping Hernández of the immunity from prosecution he enjoyed as president. The jury is still out as to whether he will ever be extradited, but the fact that a president was linked to drug trafficking in a US court could be a tipping point in the way countries fight state-embedded crime and the lengths they are prepared to go to.
A story of state and crime During the Fuentes trial, US prosecutors argued that, in Honduras, the distinction between state institutions and criminal organizations is, at best, hazy and, at worse, non-existent. Analysts
monitoring political and criminal dynamics in the Central American country say the links between crime organizations and political elites run deep, with many high-ranking public servants protecting (and profiting from) illicit economies. The story of state involvement in criminality is a familiar one in this region. Although Latin America is home to some of the most powerful transnational crime organizations in the world, it is state actors who actually dominate the criminal landscape – a finding highlighted by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC)’s Global Organized Crime Index 2021. State actors facilitate illicit markets not only by protecting them and turning a blind eye, but also by rejecting measures that, if effectively implemented, AiPol
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