In photos: Tony Hernandez and the drug war in Honduras

Tony Hernandez in an archive photo.

Some of the evidence against Hernandez includes weapons and cocaine stamped with his initials, 'TH.'

Trial exhibit #203-R4 in Tony Hernandez drug trafficking case in New York: a weapon allegedly carried by the president's brother, embossed with Honduran flag and name of his brother, president Juan Orlando Hernandez, according to prosecutors. “This picture from the defendant’s phone is the embodiment of state-sponsored drug trafficking," said U.S. Assistant Attorney, Emil Bove.

Some of the evidence against Hernandez includes these weapons and cocaine stamped with his initials, 'TH.'

On January 31, 2014, a drug laboratory was raided in the small mountainous village of Iguala in the western province of Lempira. A special police investigation unit arrested two Colombians, seized several weapons and 6,000 marijuana and heroin plants. Two months later, Colombians were released.

General Leandro Osorio, 55, was head of the special investigations unit of the Honduran police (DNIC) from 2012-2015.

Juan Antonio 'Tony' Hernandez (Archive photo)

In 2012, the United States and Honduras created special units to combat kidnapping and extortion, as well as a Special Tactical Operations Group (GOET) backed by the FBI with sophisticated eavesdropping technology to listen to phone calls. They prepared an action plan, entitled: "Operational Plan for 2013 of verified police units supported by the government of the United States of America."

The former head of the Honduran National Police, General Juan Carlos Bonilla, during an interview with Univision in 2019.

On October 8, 2012, the United States and Honduras signed a secret agreement to create 'Sensitive Investigative Unit" program', or SIU in Honduras. The program allows the DEA to vet and train local police and military personnel for use in operations focused on drug traffickers and cartels.

A clandestine airstrip used by drug traffickers in the department of Gracias a Dios, in eastern Honduras.

An alleged drug trafficking helicopter seized in the Mosquitia region of Honduras in 2014.

Former Honduran army captain, Santos Rodríguez Orellana, participated in the anti-drug missions. He was suspended from the armed forces and then disgracedly discharged after being involved in the 2014 seizure of a helicopter linked to Tony Hernandez.

One of four explosions during a Honduran military operation to disable a clandestine airstrip in eastern Honduras, creating craters 10 meters wide and 5 meters deep. May 15, 2019.

The Honduran Armed Forces disabled a clandestine airstrip with explosives on May 15, 2019, in the Brus Laguna region of Gracias a Dios, eastern Honduras. But officials told Univision the runways were often quickly repaired in a matter of days by teams of men armed with chainsaws and baskets of dirt to fill in the craters. Honduran officers said they were offered $150,000 to look the other way.

A clandestine airstrip in the department of Gracias a Dios, in eastern Honduras.

Western Honduras is a remote border area with Guatemala and El Salvador.

Alexander Ardon, the former Honduran mayor of El Paraíso, a cattle town in the department of Copan, will be a key witness in the case of drug trafficking against President Hernández's brother.

Nery Orlando Lopez Sanabria was captured in June 2018 in Honduras with drug ledgers that implicated Tony Hernandez. At the time of his arrest, Lopez was believed to be one of the largest drug traffickers in Honduras. He was murdered in a maximum security prison in Honduras, October 26, 2019.

After his arrest at Miami airport in November 20188, Tony Hernandez sat down for an "interview" with DEA agent Sandalio Gonzalez. He made a number of self-incriminating statement about his relationship with several notorious drug traffickers that were used against him at trial.

Mauricio Pineda Hernandez, is a former deputy-commissioner of the Honduran National Police who was stationed in western Honduras.

Devis Leonel Maradiaga Rivera, a former leader of the infamous 'Los Cachiros' crime family who began cooperating with the DEA in 2013 and has confessed to conspiring to kill at least 78 people.

Hector Emilio Fernandez, alias 'Don H,' was arrested in Honduras in October 2014, and extradited to the United States in September 2015. He plead guilty to trafficking 135 tons of cocaine and large quantities of methamphetamine over the course of 17 years and was sentenced to life in prison in August. Tony Hernandez admitted to the DEA that he had mert eith Don H, although he did not disclose why. Don H admitted to paying millions of dollars in bribes to Honduran officials, including former president Mel Zelaya.

Victor Hugo Diaz Morales, alias El Rojo, confessed to trafficking at least 150 tons of cocaine with Tony Hernandez and conspiring to murder at least 18 people. Hernandez admitted during a post-arrest interview with the DEA to having had a “good friendship” with Diaz Morales, having received gifts from him as well as knowing that he was a drug trafficker.

Mario Jose Calix, alias 'Cubeta' (Bucket), was born and raised in 'Tony' Hernandez's home town of Gracias, Lempira where he was vice-mayor from 2010 to 2014. His family owns an attractive local hotel, Finca del Capitan (The Captain's Farm). According to a DEA interview with Tony Hernandez, it was an open secret that Calix was a drug trafficker. He was indicted of drug trafficking charges by the Southern District of New York on January 23 2019, and is a co-defendant in the Hernandez case.

In his DEA interview, Tony Hernandez described attending meetings at Finca del Capitán, a hotel in Gracias owned by the family of accused drug trafficker Mario Jose Calix, alias 'Cubeta.' "We'd drink. They would bring in girls. Jeez, they have never been short in the girls department," he said. "As a matter of fact, some girl friends of mine went there, and ... hell! I felt terrible they were going to be passed around all of them. But, it was their lives ... one couldn’t say anything."

The Hernandez family run an attractive hotel in Gracias, 'La Posada de Don Juan', where they sell their own his altitude coffee named after a local hot spring, 'Termas del Rio'.