The Honduran Police have reported this Sunday that they have arrested Herlinda Bobadilla, who belongs to the Montes Bobadilla clan, a group that, according to the Honduran authorities, is part of organized crime. The arrest occurred in the framework of an operation in which her son, Tito, died, and three other members of the organization who are being targeted by the United States were captured. “In an intense confrontation between the Honduran Police and drug traffickers in the mountains of Colón (northeast, Caribbean), Herlinda Bobadilla and three other people were arrested. This administration is committed to the frontal fight against drug trafficking,” said the Director-General of the Honduran Police, Gustavo Sánchez.

The United States demands the extradition of the Bobadillas and offered individual rewards of five million dollars for information that led to the capture of the mother and her two children, informed the State Department spokesman, Ned Price. This clan supplies, transports and distributes drugs and launders illicit profits obtained from drug trafficking throughout Central America, Mexico, and the United States, according to Washington.

Since the authorities arrested and extradited Herlinda’s third son, Noé Montes Bobadilla, in 2017, sentenced to 37 years in prison for drug trafficking, his mother and his two brothers, Tito and Juan Carlos, have played a greater “leadership role” in the organization.

The US spokesman stressed that the arrests reinforce the efforts of President Joe Biden “to combat the destabilizing effects of transnational crime in Central America.” The statements come days after former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was imprisoned on the orders of a New York judge , after being extradited from Tegucigalpa, accused of cocaine trafficking and use of weapons.

Hernández (2014-2022) was extradited on April 21, accused of conspiring to transport some 500 tons of cocaine from South America to the United States between 2004 and 2022, even when he was not yet president. “Tony” Hernández, a brother of the former president, was sentenced in March 2021 to life in prison for the same crime. Meanwhile, the former director of the Honduran Police (2012-2013) Juan Carlos Bonilla, was also extradited to the United States on May 10, accused of “supervising” drug trafficking operations on behalf of the president.

For US prosecutors, the penetration of drug trafficking to the highest spheres of power turned Honduras into a “narco-state.” Xiomara Castro, who became president of the country in January, has pledged to fight drug trafficking and has received backing from the United States.