The Honduran National Police held this Wednesday in a sector in the east of the country 15 migrants from Venezuela and five from Kazakhstan who were being transported in a van by an alleged coyote or Honduran human trafficker.
“At a fixed checkpoint a stop signal was made to the individual, at which he parked and upon verification it was observed that he was transporting passengers in the vehicle, for which they were asked for their documents, verifying that the detainee was illegally transporting fifteen citizens of Venezuelan nationality and five from Kazakhstan,” the police said in a statement.
The migrants were detained during an operation in the municipality of Trojes, department of El Paraíso, on the border with Nicaragua, the institution said.
He added that the foreigners and the alleged coyote were detained during an operation in which agents from the National Directorate for Prevention and Community Security, the National Directorate of Border Police Services and the Police Directorate of Investigations participated.
The captured Honduran, 42 years old, and whose identity was not revealed, is supposed to be “responsible for the illicit crime of human trafficking,” said the same source.
The man allegedly transferred the migrants from Trojes to the border with Guatemala to continue en route to the United States, he added.
The detainee, a trader by profession, had a vehicle and a mobile phone confiscated, and will be presented before the judicial entity to continue his legal process, according to the police report.
Migrants will remain detained
The migrants remain held in an office of the National Migration Institute, where the authorities will coordinate their return to their country or authorize them to continue their journey.
The Honduran authorities have intensified operational actions in border areas to “combat and counter human trafficking and related crimes.”
In recent decades, the Central American country has become a transit point for migrants, especially Cubans and Africans, who cross Central American countries to reach the United States.
A total of 74,542 irregular migrants, mostly Cubans, have been detained in Honduras so far in 2022 for entering illegally, some of them with the intention of reaching the United States, according to figures from the National Migration Institute (INM). ).
Honduras published on August 3 in the Official Gazette The Gazette the legislative decree that exonerates from the payment of an administrative fine, for more than 220 dollars, to migrants in a situation of mobility who enter the country irregularly.
The amnesty consists “in the suspension of the administrative sanction for entry through unauthorized border points and that is contemplated in Article 104, number 1 of the Immigration and Aliens Law,” according to the INM.