#Honduras #extradites #suspected #drug #matriarch
Honduras on Tuesday extradited Herlinda Bobadilla, a 61-year-old suspected gang leader who was arrested in a shootout that killed one of her sons, to the United States on drug-related charges.
A US indictment alleges that Bobadilla, also known as Chinda, and two of her sons ran the “Los Montes” drug cartel – one of the largest in Honduras.
Los Montes was “responsible for the distribution into the United States of several tons of cocaine valued at several million dollars,” according to the indictment.
The clan matriarch was arrested in May along with three other people in the mountainous department of Colon in the northeast of the country.
One of her sons, Tito, was killed in a shootout. Another fled and is still on the run.
The trio allegedly took control of Los Montes after Bobadilla’s other son, Noe Montes-Bobadilla, was arrested and extradited to the United States in 2017 and subsequently sentenced to 37 years in prison for drug trafficking.
Handcuffed and surrounded by members of the special forces, Bobadilla was taken to Toncontin Air Force Base near the capital Tegucigalpa on Tuesday.
She was handed over to six members of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and escorted onto a plane that took off for the United States.
She is being charged in the Eastern District Court of Virginia with conspiracy to distribute cocaine for “unlawful importation into the United States,” according to the indictment.
Honduras is a major transit country for Colombian cocaine and other drugs, most of which are shipped to the United States.
The US had offered rewards of up to $5 million for information leading to the capture of Bobadilla and her sons.
Also in April, former President of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernandez was extradited to the United States on drug charges, just over a year after his brother Tony was sentenced to life in prison in New York.
Also in May, former Honduran police chief Juan Carlos Bonilla was sent to the United States to stand trial for allegedly overseeing drug trafficking on behalf of his boss, Hernandez.
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#Honduras #extradites #suspected #drug #matriarch
