OREANDA-NEWS. Former leader of the Mexican drug cartel Sinaloa, Joaquin Guzman, nicknamed Shorty, gave the president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernandez a bribe of $ 1 million to avoid criminal prosecution in the Central American republic. This statement was made on Wednesday by Assistant US Attorney Jason Richman, quoted by the American newspaper.

"Guzman personally handed over $ 1 million to the President of Honduras", he said in a Manhattan court during a hearing on the case of President’s brother Juan Antonio Hernandez, who was detained in the United States last November on charges of involvement in drug trafficking. Richman emphasized that "the incumbent president of Honduras patronized the defendant".

The head of state himself rejected such allegations. "They are 100% false, absurd and ridiculous", Hernandez wrote on Twitter on Thursday. In August, publications in Honduras’s media that the president of the republic received funds from the drug mafia to finance his election campaign in 2013 caused major demonstrations. Protesters demanded the resignation of Hernandez.

Joaquin Guzman was extradited to the United States from Mexico at the request of the U.S. authorities in January 2017. Prior to that, he had twice escaped from Mexican prisons, including in 2015 from a cell in Altiplano maximum security prison. Then Guzman managed to get free through a tunnel about 1.5 km long, dug by his accomplices at a depth of 10 meters. The drug lord was again detained in January 2016.

In February 2019, the jury of the New York State Eastern District jury found Shorty guilty of involvement in a criminal community, conspiracy to manufacture and distribute drugs, use firearms, and conspiracy to legalize proceeds from drug trafficking. In mid-July, Guzman was sentenced to life imprisonment and a fine of $ 12.6 billion.