Cachiros or Los Cachiros is the name of a Honduran criminal organization dedicated to drug trafficking. It was founded in the early 1990s by a group of cattle farmers in the departments of Colón and Olancho de

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Oce ...

. One of the leaders of the Cachiros, Javier Maradiaga, also known as "Javier Cachiro", surrendered to the US government in January 2015. During the trial, Maradiaga pleaded guilty to the charge of

drug trafficking A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via insuffla ...

. After Maradiaga's statement, Honduran authorities seized goods valued between 500 and 800 million dollars. The

net worth Net worth is the value of all the non-financial and financial assets owned by an individual or institution minus the value of all its outstanding liabilities. Since financial assets minus outstanding liabilities equal net financial assets, net ...

of the Cachiros is valued at more than one billion dollars. In March 2017, Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga testified at the trial of Fabio Porfirio Lobo in the

United States District Court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district, which each cover o ...

, Southern District of New York. Rivera Maradiaga declared that during the period from 2009 to 2013, the Honduran government assisted him in his drug trafficking operations by providing police intelligence, radar information, and assignment of military personnel to provide security. Rivera Maradiaga also said his organization paid bribes to prominent members of the Honduran government including former president

Porfirio Lobo Sosa Porfirio Lobo Sosa (born 22 December 1947), known as Pepe Lobo, is a Honduran politician and agricultural landowner who served as President of Honduras from 2010 to 2014. A member of the conservative National Party and a former deputy in the ...

. The bribes were made in order to receive support to their operations and be granted contracts to companies owned by the Cachiros. Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga not only testified but also provided evidence in the form of voice recordings, videos, photographs, etc.

References

{{reflist Drug cartels Drugs in Honduras Organized crime groups in Honduras