The description might sound like a sketch of Venezuela\u2019s authoritarian president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, who Donald Trump\u2019s administration has accused of being a \u201cnarco-terrorist\u201d kingpin and is trying to topple with a $50m bounty<\/a> and a huge display of military might off the South American country\u2019s Caribbean coast.<\/p>\n But it is actually a portrait \u2013 painted by US prosecutors, no less \u2013 of the former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez, who Trump last week pledged to pardon, despite the fact that Hern\u00e1ndez was sentenced last year to 45 years in prison for allegedly<\/a> creating \u201ca cocaine superhighway to the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe people of Honduras<\/a> really thought he was set up and it was a terrible thing,\u201d Trump told reporters on Sunday. \u201cHe was the president of the country and they basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country \u2026 and I looked at the facts and I agreed with them.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s astonishing intervention in favour of Hern\u00e1ndez, who is known by his initials JOH, has baffled many observers, with one Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent calling the move \u201clunacy\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n Why would the US president use his \u201cwar on drugs\u201d as a justification for overthrowing Maduro \u2013 despite what many see as flimsy evidence that the Venezuelan leader really is a narco boss \u2013 while simultaneously offering a Get Out of Jail Free card to a man already found guilty of such crimes in a Manhattan federal court<\/a>?<\/p>\n Why had Trump spent recent weeks blowing up alleged narco boats in the Caribbean<\/a> \u2013 with negligible impact on flow of drugs to the US \u2013 and at the same time decided to let a big time trafficker convicted of smuggling far larger quantities of drugs off the hook?<\/p>\n \u201cIt just shows that the entire counter-drug effort of Donald Trump is a charade \u2013 it\u2019s based on lies, it\u2019s based on hypocrisy,\u201d said Mike Vigil, the former DEA chief for international operations. \u201cHe is giving a pardon to Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez and then going after Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> \u2026 It\u2019s all hypocritical.\u201d<\/p>\n Contrary to Trump\u2019s claim that Hern\u00e1ndez, 57, had been the victim of a \u201cBiden set up\u201d, Vigil said there was overwhelming evidence that the Central American politician was \u201ca big fish in the narco world\u201d. Not only had Hern\u00e1ndez helped turn Honduras into a major transit point for South American cocaine heading to the US, but Vigil said he had also transformed it into a cocaine producing hub<\/a> which was now home to coca plantations and makeshift labs for processing coca leaves<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you take a look at Pablo Escobar and [Joaqu\u00edn] \u2018El Chapo\u2019 Guzm\u00e1n, they were big drug traffickers \u2013 but they were never presidents of a country,\u201d Vigil added.<\/p>\n \u201cSo if Donald Trump<\/a> is giving this guy a pardon, why is he not giving [the also incarcerated Mexican cartel boss] Chapo Guzm\u00e1n a pardon? El \u200bChapo Guzm\u00e1n is less of a figure in the drug world than Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez was.\u201d<\/p>\n Ioan Grillo, the author of a trio of books on Latin America\u2019s narco underworld, was also puzzled by Trump\u2019s \u201cjaw-dropping\u201d offer<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy \u2026 it really undermines his hard-line \u2018war on drugs\u2019 position,\u201d Grillo said, wondering if Trump might rethink his move given the outcry.<\/p>\n US prosecutors alleged that even before taking power Hern\u00e1ndez had started conspiring with Latin American narco bosses who have long used the Central American country as a trampoline to smuggle drugs into the US. Jurors agreed and, in July 2024, Hern\u00e1ndez was sentenced to more than four decades in prison \u201cfor cocaine importation and related weapons offenses\u201d. His younger brother, Juan Antonio \u201cTony\u201d Hern\u00e1ndez, was sentenced to life in prison<\/a> in 2021. Among his crimes was accepting $1m from El Chapo \u201cto support Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s presidential campaign\u201d.<\/p>\n Vigil believed Hern\u00e1ndez was responsible for helping move billions of dollars worth of cocaine into the US \u2013 far more than the fast boats Trump\u2019s \u201ckinetic strikes\u201d have destroyed in the Caribbean and Pacific since September.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s killed approximately 80 people, destroyed approximately 20 boats, and he has not provided any concrete evidence that they were carrying drugs,\u201d said Vigil, who believed many of those killed on the fast boats were impoverished fishers who, in some cases, might have earned $200-a-month for transporting drugs.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, despite Trump\u2019s claims that Maduro is the leader of a narco organization called the \u201cCartel of the Suns<\/a>\u201d, many experts doubt such a group even exists.<\/p>\n \u201cMaduro is not a saint,\u201d said Vigil, noting how he and several allies were indicted for trafficking cocaine in the US in 2020. \u201c[But] they\u2019re not a cartel, they don\u2019t have an infrastructure,\u201d he added, calling such allegations a \u201cnonsense\u201d.<\/p>\n Orlando P\u00e9rez, a Latin America expert from the University of North Texas at Dallas, said Trump\u2019s double standards on which drug smuggling presidents to pursue revealed there was no consistent strategy to fight the region\u2019s drug traffickers. \u201cIt\u2019s all ad hoc and based on political considerations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cOne [Hern\u00e1ndez] is a right-wing supporter of the US \u2013 and the other [Maduro] is not,\u201d P\u00e9rez added. \u201cIt is ideological. It is political. It is self-interested in terms of advancing an ideological agenda \u2013 and it has nothing to do with effective anti-drug policies.\u201d<\/p>\n Quick GuideContact us about this storyShow The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know.<\/p>\n If you have something to share on this subject, you can contact us confidentially using the following methods.<\/p>\n Secure Messaging in the Guardian app<\/strong><\/p>\n The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories. Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs. This prevents an observer from knowing that you are communicating with us at all, let alone what is being said.<\/p>\n If you don’t already have the Guardian app, download it (iOS<\/a>\/Android<\/a>) and go to the menu. 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