Global Courant 2023-04-11 11:04:11
After serving a five-year sentence, Honduran drug trafficker Byron Ruiz returned to Guatemala. However, from the neighboring country it is operating with partners, also from Honduraswho visit him constantly to organize the transport of cocaine, according to anti-drug agents.
Ruiz, according to investigations, works with criminal structures anchored in Honduran territory that are in charge of receiving drug shipments to be transported to Guatemala.
Already on Guatemalan soil, Byron Ruiz leads the transfer of cocaine shipments whose final destination is USA.
Operation
The Honduran authorities have had information about the operations led by Byron Ricardo Ruiz Ruiz from Chapín soil, but they assure that he does not visit Honduras, but that his liaisons in the country are the ones who travel to the neighboring country to receive instructions.
It is worth remembering that Ruiz regained his freedom on June 23, 2022, according to information from the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons, after serving a sentence of five years in prison.
The drug trafficker was convicted for having been involved in the landing of planes loaded with drugs in the departments of Olancho and Gracias a Dios between 2010 and 2017, indicate the reports of the New York Prosecutor’s Office.
Byron Ruiz, originally from Olancho, was in Guatemala on March 20, 2018 when he was captured and extradited a year later to the United States, where he faced justice.
The New York Prosecutor’s Office charged him with the crimes of international conspiracy to distribute cocaine, conspiring to distribute cocaine using drug planes and the use of machine guns and destructive devices for drug trafficking.
He was released after signing a plea agreement and collaboration with US prosecutors.
Order
Ruiz has an arrest warrant in Honduras for crimes of drug trafficking and money laundering, according to information from the Directorate for the Fight Against Drug Trafficking (DLCN). That could be one of the reasons why he does not come to Honduras, according to sources who also indicated that he has had contacts with organized crime in Guatemala for a long time.
300,000
Kilos of cocaine receives Honduras each year, according to a report published in March by United States agencies.
In the Fugitive operation, in June 2015, the DLCN secured six residences and a farm. In Honduras, Ruiz worked with at least 60 men, who guaranteed the transportation of drug shipments that arrived by plane in the Atlántida and Colón areas.
In April 2019, the Public Ministry assured him of more assets, in addition to the fact that they were after the sights of 24 members of his gang and partners accused of money laundering.
In that operation, Armando Antonio Figueroa García, Guillermo Josué Delgado Cálix, Óscar Alberto Ruiz Ruiz, Gumercindo Alonzo Ruiz Guifarro, Luis Alberto Ponce Ríos, Elvin Alonzo Santos and Franklyn Adalberto Canales Cruz were captured, who were convicted in court as co-perpetrators of the crime of traffic of drugs aggravated.
extradited
Ruiz is one of the few Hondurans who served time in the United States for drug trafficking, without having been captured in his homeland. The same happened with Fabio Lobo, son of Pepe Lobo, who was arrested in Haiti in May 2015 by agents of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA for its initials in English).
In the processes initiated from Honduras, the authorities have extradited 37 citizens to the United States, including former President Juan Orlando Hernández.
Among the latest cases is that of the former mayor of Yoro Arnaldo Urbina Soto, extradited on January 31, 2023, and who faces charges for crimes related to drug trafficking.
On March 30 of this year, former congressman Midence Oquelí Martínez Turcios was also extradited, accused in the Southern District Court of New York for the crimes of conspiring to traffic drugs and weapons. Oquelí was captured in December 2022 in Colón, after having been a fugitive since 2018, as he had an arrest warrant. Released.
Ruiz is part of the list of leaders and associates involved with drug cartels who have been released after serving their sentences. Others had their sentences reduced after reaching collaboration agreements with the United States justice system. In 2014 he was extradited to the United States, Juving Alexander Peralta, and was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Through a collaboration agreement, Juving achieved a reduction in his sentence and in February 2022 he obtained his supervised release, but there are no reports that he has been deported to Honduras.
Another Honduran convicted in the United States and close to being released from prison is Carlos Arnaldo Lobo, known as the Negro Lobo. He was captured in San Pedro Sula in March 2014 and, according to information from the Federal Prison Bureau, his sentence ends on August 3, 2023. For agents who have investigated drug trafficking for years, Negro Lobo could reorganize his structure, since it had great power in Honduras.
Family
Several of the criminal structure of the brothers Miguel Arnulfo and Luis Valle Valle, who controlled drug trafficking in the Copán area, have already been released. Recently, his younger brother José Inocente Valle Valle was deported from the United States after serving his sentence for drug trafficking crimes. José Inocente was captured in 2014 along with his wife Marlen Griselda Amaya Argueta, who has also achieved his freedom.
In the same way, Digna Valle was released, who reached a plea agreement and collaboration to reduce her sentence.
After serving her prison sentence, lawyers for the defendant applied for asylum in the United States, but was denied. Sources indicate that Digna Valle’s son, Gerson Stanley Ortega Valle (who was also captured and extradited), was released from her.
Other members of the Valle Valle will be released between 2023 and 2024, because after collaborating and handing over other drug traffickers, their sentences were reduced. The criminal group headed by Luis and Miguel Arnulfo Valle Valle controlled the drug trafficking route to Guatemala, since they dominated the Copán area.
That strategic location gave them a position as intermediaries with Mexican, Colombian, and Guatemalan cartels.
The US Treasury Department estimated that the Valles were smuggling 5 to 20 tons of cocaine into the United States a month. The Copán area has not yet rid itself of the power of this and other drug trafficking organizations.
