Honduran Prosecutors Detain Mayor of Brus Laguna on Drug Trafficking Charges

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The law enforcement agencies of Honduras stopped the activities of three drug trafficking organizations as part of a special operation, the country's Public Prosecutor's Office said on Sunday, adding that among the detainees was the mayor of Brus Laguna municipality, Wilmer Manolo Wood.

"The Special Prosecutor's Office Against Organized Crime (FESCCO) and the Technical Criminal Investigation Agency (ATIC) conduct Operation Nutos, which carries out house searches, seizures and inspections in the departments of Atlantida, Colon and Gracias a Dios - areas where the three criminal structures operated and transported more than 90 tonnes of cocaine in the last five years," the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

These criminal organizations have coordinated the reception in Honduras of at least 99 planes with cocaine from South America, the statement added.

Brus Laguna is a small municipality with about 13,000 residents that sits on a small bay on the Atlantic side of Honduras in the Gracias a Dios region.

According to the list of International Air Transport Association codes, there is a small airstrip just south of Brus Laguna. The municipality was the site of at least three major cocaine busts in 2020. Authorities said that cartels use "clandestine landing areas" to transport the drugs, noting that 30 of them were disabled in the Gracias a Dios region of Honduras.

The mayor of Brus Laguna allegedly organized the transportation of about 30 tonnes of cocaine by boats and planes.