TEGUCIGALPA, (Reuters) – Honduran security forces foiled an international plan last year by drug traffickers to assassinate President Juan Hernandez after he launched a crackdown on organized crime, the government said yesterday.
Security ministry spokesman Leonel Sauceda said the plot hatched by Colombian, Mexican, Honduran and Guatemalan gangsters was to kill Hernandez upon his arrival at the airport of the town of Gracias, in western Honduras, between Sept. 21-22.
Hernandez, who arrived in Washington on Monday to canvas U.S. support for a plan to boost investment in Central American countries plagued by violence, took office in January 2014.
Honduras has the world’s highest murder rate and along with El Salvador and Guatemala, has been seeking to raise billions of dollars to spur growth in an effort to reduce crime and cut migration to the United States, which sparked a border crisis last year.
Sauceda said Honduran police and military officials discovered the assassination plot via intelligence gathering. Several gang leaders had been detained in connection with the plot and were handed over to authorities in their respective home countries, he added.
