U.S. sentences former Honduran police chief to 19 year prison sentence for drug trafficking

Former Honduran police chief Juan Carlos “El Tigre” Bonilla was sentenced this Thursday to 19 years in prison in the U.S. on drug trafficking charges, according to the EFE Spanish language news service. The report was the result of a confirmation by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY).

SDNY Judge Kevin Castel presided over the sentencing of Bonilla, 64, who pleaded guilty to drug trafficking on Feb. 6 as part of the same prosecution against former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández.

According to Honduran media, the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) requested a sentence of 30 years and Bonilla’s defense requested the minimum of 10 years, asking for “mercy” from the judge for family and health reasons.

Bonilla’s attorneys said he regretted his “error,” but the judge declined their request, stood firm and reproached him for his “way of life.”

“This was much more than a mistake,” the SDNY judge asserted. “It was a way of life. He had tremendous military influence, he seemed to live up to it. There are others who will not return home to their families because of addiction. The defendant facilitated this,” Castel asserted, according to Inner City Press.

Bonilla, who led the Honduran National Police between 2012 and 2013 under the government of Porfirio Lobo (2010-2014), was accused in 2021 in the United States of participating in a conspiracy to import cocaine into the country and using firearms and destructive devices to do so.

He was extradited to the United States in 2022 to face the charges, but after signing the plea agreement in February 2024, those charges were reduced only to drug trafficking. He was also part of the same prosecutorial effort against former president Juan Orlando Hernández.

USAO prosecutors said Bonilla aligned himself with “powerful Honduran politicians,” including Orlando Hernández and former congressman Juan Antonio 'Tony' Hernández, and that he helped them “corrupt Honduran institutions” and inflict violence in the country for a decade.

He was also accused of having committed crimes on behalf of Orlando Hernández and Hernández.

Orlando Hernández was accused of using money from Mexican drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán to help him commit electoral fraud in two elections in exchange for being part of a conspiracy to import cocaine into the U.S.  

The former Honduran president was sentenced in June to 45 years in prison