Honduran mayor Wilmer Wood has been taken into custody for helping three drug cartels ship 90 tons of cocaine to the United States in boats and planes
- Honduras Mayor Wilmer Wood was arrested Sunday on suspicion of drug trafficking
- The prosecution says he would have helped three cartels – Los Piningos, Los Yanez and Los Amador – ship 90 kilograms of cocaine to the US.
A Honduran mayor is in police custody on charges of aiding drug cartels in trafficking cocaine to the United States.
Mayor Wilmer Wood was arrested on Sunday in a home in the Caribbean port city of La Ceiba, the Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.
He was elected mayor of Brus Laguna, a remote border town across from Nicaragua, in 2022.
The prosecution alleges that Wood helped three criminal organizations — Los Piningos, Los Yanez and Los Amador — smuggle 90 tons of cocaine into the United States via boats and planes.
Jaime López, an alleged member of Los Piningos, was also arrested on charges of drug trafficking.
Wood is said to have become involved with illegal drugs and money fifteen years ago, transferring it from the Caribbean department of Gracias a Dios to the departments of Colón and Atlántida.
Honduran mayor Wilmer Wood was arrested Sunday on suspicion of drug trafficking. Prosecutors said Wood helped three cartels smuggle 90 tons of cocaine into the United States
The Honduran government accuses Mayor Wilmer Wood of receiving 30 kilograms of cocaine from Colombia since 2018. Authorities say he collaborated with three cartels in Honduras to smuggle 90 tons of cocaine into the United States
He allegedly left on his own in 2014 and began working closely with the region’s three cartels, receiving drug shipments from South America.
The prosecution said there were 15 incidents where Wood received cocaine from Colombia that was smuggled in speedboats that he docked in Brus Laguna and the neighboring town of Ebans. The drugs were then moved to other cities.
Since 2018, Wood has “received, collected and transferred” at least 30 kilograms of cocaine.
Mayor Wood’s arrest follows multiple raids and inspections along the Atlantic coast.
Honduran authorities believe that Mexican drug cartels supplying the United States transport cocaine through Central America and Mexico after it has been transported by boat or plane from Colombia to the Mosquitia region and other parts of Honduras’ Atlantic coast.
Wilmer Wood, the mayor of the Honduran city of Brus Laguna, is guarded Monday by police and air force soldiers Hernan Acosta Mejia
Jaime López (left), an alleged member of Los Piningos, and Honduran mayor Wilmer Wood (right)
Former President Juan Orlando Hernández was extradited to the United States in April 2022 on drug and weapons charges.
Between 2004 and 2022, Hernández allegedly conspired to smuggle thousands of kilograms of cocaine into the United States, according to Justice Department documents.
Federal prosecutors alleged that Hernández promised to “put the drugs right in the noses of the gringos” and received millions of dollars to “use his public office, law enforcement and the military to destroy drug trafficking organizations in Honduras, Mexico and elsewhere.”
His brother, Congressman Juan Antonio Hernández, was extradited to the United States in October 2019 and convicted of drug trafficking and gun charges. In March 2021, he was sentenced to life in prison.
At his 2019 trial, a government witness testified that Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán contributed $1 million ahead of Juan Orlando Hernández’s 2013 presidential campaign in exchange for protection.