Honduras – together with the other two countries that make up the Northern Triangle, El Salvador and Guatemala – has been rife with corruption for years. After a government embezzlement scandal in 2015 – which included the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars from the country’s social security fund – Honduras partnered with the Organization of American States (OAS) to establish the Mission to Support the Fight Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH). 

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However, unlike the anti-corruption commission in Guatemala, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández demanded the initiative be purely advisory, meaning no investigations without the consent of the government. President Hernández did not renew the MACCIH mandate in January 2020.

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If you are wondering why President Hernández, who took office in 2014 and was re-elected in 2017, didn’t really like the MACCIH, it’s because he was straight-up corrupt. Although they couldn’t investigate it thoroughly because of President Hernández’s restrictions, MACCIH staff found evidence of significant corruption involving Hernández, his family and close associates. Although allegations of fraud, corruption and drug trafficking had followed Hernández for years, the first Trump administration overlooked them because of Hernández’s commitment to help with America’s immigration issues. But! In January 2021, New York federal prosecutors accused Hernández of accepting millions of dollars from drug traffickers in exchange for him looking the other way as they sent massive amounts of cocaine to the United States. He was extradited to the United States in April 2022. On June 26, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Juan Orlando Hernández, former President of Honduras, was sentenced to 45 years in prison for conspiring to distribute over 400 tons of cocaine and related firearms offenses.

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Xiomara Castro has been the president of Honduras since January 2022. Honduras remains among the poorest countries in Latin America, is terrorized by severe violence – mainly by organized crime and gang activity – and has one of the highest murder rates in the entire world. As a result, President Castro has followed the same strategy imposed by Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, suspending constitutional rights (which is not a good thing in a country where security forces have an appalling human rights record). Although these extraordinary measures were meant to be temporary, they have proven not to be.

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… and the problems are mounting for President Castro. Although she was elected to power on an anti-corruption message, a video was released in 2024 showing her brother-in-law meeting with drug traffickers in 2013, seemingly negotiating bribes… giving weight to the rumors that President Castro and her family are involved in the same criminal networks as President Hernández was. In February 2025 – after reaching an agreement with the Trump administration for Honduras to receive deported migrants – President Castro reversed course on her previous decision to end a long-running extradition treaty with the United States.