Plans are allegedly in the works between the Trump and Netanyahu administrations to restore the recently released Juan Orlando Hernández to power in Honduras.
This week, leaked audio messages from platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal, featured on the Spanish news outlet Canal RED, indicate that pro-Israel organizations played a significant role in securing a presidential pardon for former Honduran President and convicted drug trafficker Juan Orlando Hernández, known as JOH, from a U.S. federal prison late last year.
The recordings imply that the deal involved trading Trump’s pardon for various concessions in Honduras. However, as Drop Site News observes, the specifics of which concessions were assigned to which party remain uncertain, all framed within a shared U.S.-Israel aligned agenda.
There’s also ambiguity surrounding the recipients of the “pardon money.” Canal RED has announced further audio leaks, suggesting that the details may become clearer over time. One evident concern, as highlighted by Stephen Holmes in an article for Project Syndicate shortly after JOH’s pardon, is that Trump appears to be transforming the presidential pardon process into a lucrative indulgences scheme (h/t JohnA).
In one leaked audio, JOH claims: “The pardon money … originated from a board of rabbis and supporters of Israel, who had previously backed Yani Rosenthal.” Rosenthal, a former president of Honduras’s Liberal Party and an associate of JOH, was convicted in 2017 for money laundering connected to a well-known Honduran cartel.
HUGE: Leaked audios reveal pro-Israel groups ‘paid’ for US pardon of convicted drug trafficker and ex-Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez – says Netanyahu ‘had everything to do’ with his release from a high-security US federal prison last year.https://t.co/j6VanNRlSc
— Sharmine Narwani (@snarwani) April 30, 2026
In 2024, JOH was convicted in a U.S. federal court for trafficking 400 tons of cocaine as well as arms running, receiving a 45-year prison sentence. He was also found guilty of receiving funds from Joaquín Archivaldo “El Chapo” Guzmán, the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, to finance electoral fraud.
Despite this, Trump granted the pardon on December 1 of last year, coinciding with U.S. military operations targeting speedboats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific thought to be carrying illegal drugs. Trump described the DEA’s investigation into JOH as a “setup” by the Biden administration, without presenting any evidence.
Interestingly, the prosecution of JOH was overseen by Emil Bove, who would later serve as Trump’s personal lawyer, then as acting Deputy Attorney General, and now sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals. Therefore, Trump pardoned a man whom his future attorney helped convict.
The pardon seems to be part of a broader strategy by the U.S. and Israel to expand their “areas of control” in Central America, reports Valeria Duarte Galleguillos for Canal RED, a news outlet founded in 2023 by former Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias, known for his ties to leftist governments in Latin America.
According to the leaked recordings, JOH appears to be creating a “corruption network” to eliminate political opposition to his return to power. Currently, legal barriers hinder him from returning to Honduras, but the Asfura government is reportedly working diligently to dismantle those obstacles (machine translation):
The plan includes the current president, Nasry Asfura, the President of the National Congress, Tomás Zambrano, National Electoral Counselor, Cosette López-Osorio, and Vice President María Antonieta Mejía.
They are all featured in a series of exclusive WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram audio messages obtained by Canal RED and Hondurasgate, which unveil a politically charged operation of unprecedented corruption, including Hernández’s reinstatement with Trump’s backing and Israeli financing. [In exchange, JOH has agreed to] relinquish control of development zones, a U.S. military base, and legislative development conducive to U.S. and Israeli AI companies…
The goal is clear: to ensure Hernández’s return to the presidency in the next elections. The recordings indicate he is not merely planning his physical return once all judicial hurdles are cleared, but is also negotiating a succession arrangement with Nasry Asfura.
In this scenario, Asfura would serve as a transitional president, preparing the way for Hernández to run again in the upcoming elections. Should this plan succeed, Hernández would assume the role of Trump’s primary political operative and Israeli lobbyist in Central America, transforming Honduras into a strategic hub for military, logistical, and economic operations for the U.S., replicating the model of the Palmerola base and the ZEDES (Special Economic Zones) but with even greater concentration of power.
Not only would JOH regain power, but Honduras would become a critical geopolitical point for U.S. interests vis-à-vis China and other competing powers in Latin America.
Most mainstream media outlets in Spain and the U.S. have yet to cover this story. It is unclear whether the lack of coverage stems from the sensitive nature of the allegations or concerns over their accuracy.
JOH has denied the accusations, claiming the recordings are forged. However, he has notably refrained from threatening legal action against Canal RED for defamation, a typical response in such cases. Like Trump, he accuses the Biden administration of orchestrating a witch hunt against him.
A significant inconsistency with this narrative arises when considering that JOH’s brother, Tony Hernández, a fellow congressman from the National Party, was charged with drug-related offenses in 2019 by the Trump-era Justice Department, eventually receiving a life sentence in 2021 for distributing 185 tons of cocaine.
Tony Hernández’s prosecution implicated JOH, who was extradited in 2022 and sentenced to 45 years for multiple drug trafficking and weapons conspiracy charges. New York prosecutors even characterized Honduras as a “narco-state” during JOH’s leadership, fueled by considerable cartel bribes.
Reports suggest that JOH may have ordered the removal of a co-conspirator in Honduras’s prison system to safeguard himself. At one point, he purportedly boasted, “We’ll stuff drugs up the gringos’ noses without them ever knowing.”
Selective Application
In pardoning Hernández, Trump provided no evidence supporting claims of bias or corruption in the trial, as pointed out by the Gray Zone’s Wyatt Reed:
“Nor has he clarified how the then-president of Honduras could have been ignorant of the extensive cocaine trafficking conspiracy that his own brother — Tony Hernández — was indicted for by Trump’s Department of Justice.”
Trump pardoned Hernández a day after the Honduran elections on November 30, 2025. Leaked audio suggests this act was less an act of mercy and more a prelude to a significant agreement involving Trump, JOH, and Netanyahu. Trump also directly intervened in the Honduran elections by endorsing Tito Asfura of Hernández’s National Party while denouncing his rivals and threatening severe repercussions if Asfura lost.
What had not been disclosed previously was the alleged involvement of pro-Israel groups in securing JOH’s release. One leaked recording features JOH claiming that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “had everything to do” with arrangements leading to his pardon.
Hernández’s longstanding ties with Israel and Netanyahu are well documented. As journalist José Alberto Niño detailed in a post after JOH’s pardon:
[JOH’s] connection with Israel predates his national office. As a young man in the early 1990s, Hernández visited Israel through the Mashav program, initiated by the Israeli Agency for International Development Cooperation. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency noted that he completed a Mashav enrichment course in 1992, marking the start of his diplomatic career.
Decades later, at the inauguration of the Honduran embassy in Jerusalem, Hernández remarked that his initial visit to Israel was “life-changing.” He noted that the trip shaped his views on security, agriculture, and innovation.
Once in the presidential palace, Hernández transformed this personal connection into state policy. In October 2015, during his state visit to Jerusalem, he declared that “As long as I am president, Honduras will stand behind Israel.” The World Jewish Congress celebrated the event, highlighting his assertion of unprecedented closeness between the two nations.
This commitment was not mere rhetoric; Hernández aimed to position Honduras as one of Latin America’s staunchest pro-Israel governments. He adjusted the Honduran voting record at the United Nations to abstain from or oppose resolutions considered detrimental to Israel’s interests.
Hernández opened a diplomatic and trade office in Jerusalem, signaling recognition of the city as Israel’s capital, and he committed to relocating the Honduran embassy there, issuing joint statements with Israeli and U.S. officials that set public timelines for this action. The move was completed in June 2021.
In terms of security, Hernández aligned closely with U.S. and Israeli positions. His government designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, a move lauded by significant American Jewish organizations.
As his legal troubles mounted and extradition became probable, Hernández reportedly sought assistance from Israeli officials to delay or prevent his handover to U.S. authorities. The Times of Israel confirmed this plea and emphasized Hernández’s belief that his years of unwavering support had garnered him favor in Jerusalem.
That assumption appeared misguided when he arrived in New York in handcuffs but now seems justified following Trump’s pardon.
The audio recordings imply that Hernández’s presidential pardon was facilitated through substantial lobbying by Roger Stone along with the Republican Caucus in the U.S., implicitly supported by Netanyahu. Stone had advocated publicly for JOH’s pardon since 2024. The leaked conversations reveal that Israel will fund Hernández’s return to power in Honduras and manage all logistical arrangements essential for bringing him back to the presidency.
Four Main Objectives
The audio leaks suggest that the U.S. and Israel are pursuing four primary objectives in their support for JOH:
1. Expansion of Special Employment and Economic Zones (ZEDEs). The ZEDEs, which Xiomara Castro’s administration began dismantling, grant significant national sovereignty concessions, effectively allowing foreign legal systems and courts to operate independently within Honduras.
As we reported in 2024, the extent of authority previously awarded to ZEDE owners during the government of Hernández’s predecessor, Porfirio Lobo Sosa (January 2010-January 2014), was staggering:
[T]he 2013 legislation explicitly stated that “each ZEDE will have its own security forces (…), including its police, investigation units, intelligence, prosecution, and prison systems.” These zones would maintain independent financial systems and not be subject to the oversight of the Central Bank of Honduras; they could even develop their own monetary policies.
Before Castro’s election, local businesses complained that the laws were overly favorable to foreign investors, harming domestic business interests. Even Paul Rohmer, the architect of international charter cities who initially collaborated with Lobo Sosa’s administration on ZEDEs, disavowed the initiative, labeling Honduras’s ZEDE framework as undemocratic, opaque, doomed to fail, and mired in misinformation. An article from The Intercept illustrates the bizarre circumstance of a coalition of libertarian investors partnering with a past Honduran government — linked closely with drug traffickers and instituted following a U.S.-backed military coup — to impose radical libertarian policies that ceded vast territories to these investors via special economic zones. After a public backlash led to the ousting of this narco-supported regime, a new government repealed the libertarian legislation, inciting the crypto investors to use the World Bank to enforce the prior narco-government’s policies.
Under a new Hernández regime, these measures will not only be honored but aggressively expanded. This suggests that we can expect the emergence of new Prosperas Inc., supported by radical Silicon Valley libertarians such as Balaji Srinivasan, Peter Thiel, and Marc Andreessen.
2. Establishment of new U.S. military bases. Honduras already hosts one major U.S. military installation — Soto Cano Air Base, commonly known as Palmerola Base, which plays a crucial role in Trump’s deportation and drug war initiatives, reports VoA. However, it seems the U.S. seeks to increase its military footprint.
This aligns with a broader trend across Latin America, where a new base is under construction in Argentina, and the U.S. is upgrading its naval facility in Callao, Peru, just 70 kilometers south of the Chinese-operated mega-port at Chancay, with a $1.5 billion investment.
El Salvador’s main airport is transforming into a forward operation point for the U.S. Air Force, while the José Mulino government in Panama, under intense pressure from the Trump administration, has permitted the limited return of U.S. troops to the Canal Zone.
In Ecuador, over 38,000 troops have been deployed nationwide in security operations alongside U.S. forces, despite public opposition to the reestablishment of U.S. military bases in a recent vote.
¡MÁS DE 38.000 EFECTIVOS MILITARES DESPLEGADOS EN TODO EL TERRITORIO NACIONAL! 💪
La presencia militar es activa, permanente y disuasiva.
➡️ Con el objetivo de reforzar la seguridad y proteger la tranquilidad de las familias ecuatorianas durante el feriado, el personal militar… pic.twitter.com/hljWpqvtTv
— Ministerio de Defensa Nacional del Ecuador (@DefensaEc) April 29, 2026
Simultaneously, tensions with Cuba are increasing, as Rubio now accuses Havana of “rolling out the welcome mat to adversaries of the U.S. to operate within Cuban territory against our national interest.”
.@SecRubio: The Cuban regime has “rolled out the welcome mat to adversaries of the U.S. to operate within Cuban territory against our national interest with impunity. We are not going to allow any foreign military or intelligence operations to occur with impunity 90… https://t.co/W35eYlZIqq
— Senior Official Jeremy Lewin (@UnderSecretaryF) April 28, 2026
3. A free trade agreement with rigorous stipulations, likely including provisions for International State Dispute Settlement (ISDS). In February 2024, Xiomara Castro announced Honduras’s withdrawal from ICSID, the World Bank’s arbitration panel, following a $10 billion lawsuit from investors behind Prospera Inc. This withdrawal made Honduras the first Central American nation to exit ICSID, which has 149 member countries.
Since the government change, Honduras has rejoined ICSID, and one of the first actions by Hernández’s placeholder, Asfura, was to travel to Mar-a-Lago and Tel Aviv, where he met with Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who voiced their commitment to “refashion” bilateral relations. A U.S.-Honduras FTA is now a priority, as is scrapping the China-Honduras FTA that was under consideration.
4. Legislation designed to attract investment from AI companies based in the U.S. and Israel, with contracts likely awarded to major firms like General Electric. These companies would benefit from investment protections afforded by ICSID membership, along with those investing in charter cities like Prospera. This initiative is part of a broader strategy aggressively pursued not just by the Trump administration, but also by Netanyahu’s government.
Recent developments include Peter Thiel’s arrival in Argentina and USA Rare Earth’s acquisition of Serraverd, Brazil’s largest rare earth mineral producer for military applications on the continent. The U.S. Southern Command has also announced the establishment of a new autonomous warfare command for deploying unmanned systems, aiming for military operations “from the seabed to space and throughout the cyber domain.”
Next-generation capabilities:@NAVSOUS4THFLT‘s #FLEX2026 exercise in Key West, Florida, is advancing SOUTHCOM objectives to embrace autonomous, semi-autonomous, and unmanned platforms and systems to counter threats and challenges in the region.
These successes are forming the… pic.twitter.com/gNp4TyAqMP
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) April 28, 2026
According to Venezuelan geopolitical analyst William Serafino:
U.S. militarization of the region, conducted under a model of corporate privatization, epitomizes the merging of military power and capitalism to ensure dispossession and imperial control.
This geopolitical strategy seems designed to benefit not only the U.S. and its corporations but also Israeli interests. As highlighted in our earlier post, “The (Attempted) Israelization of Latin America,” recent elections in South America have ushered in governments that are entirely aligned with Israel, coinciding with its actions in Gaza.
The map below, created by Yousef Ibrahim of the U.S. Anti-Zionist Political Action Committee (Azapac), illustrates the emerging “South American Israel.”
I called it. pic.twitter.com/oczeWmbiIQ
— Yousef Ibrahim يوسف إبراهيم (@Yousefiaa) January 4, 2026
The Netanyahu administration remains optimistic that upcoming elections in Brazil and Colombia could yield more favorable leaders. As is well-documented, Latin America has largely opposed Israel’s actions in Gaza. Tel Aviv is determined to alter that narrative, though whether it can achieve enduring success remains uncertain.
