Tony Hernandez facilitated bribes from drug traffickers to his brother Juan Orlando, including $1 million from former Sinaloa Cartel boss Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman during the 2013 presidential campaign, according to a witness.

A former National Party mayor and confessed drug trafficker, Alexander Ardon, testified that he witnessed Tony Hernandez receive the money from El Chapo at his home in the town of El Paraiso, near the Guatemalan border, in packets of $50,000 and $100,000 in plastic bags.

There are other alleged witnesses to the bribery, Guatemalan cousins Otto and Ronald Salguero, who are prepared to rebut Ardon's testimony, according to defense lawyers. The Salgueros are in U.S. custody awaiting trial and are not cooperating with prosecutors.

El Chapo's lawyer told Univision that he had no knowledge of the bribe.

Tony Hernandez, one of Juan Orlando's younger brothers, was sentenced to life in prison on March 30 for trafficking 185 tons of cocaine.

According to prosecutors, Juan Orlando was serving his second term in Congress in 2004 when Tony Hernandez began working with drug traffickers, providing information on police checkpoints and air traffic radars. By the time a 2009 coup led to a change in government control to Hernandez's National Party, Tony had become a cocaine supplier, with a laboratory in Colombia that allegedly stamped some of the kilos with his initials: TH.

While campaigning for a Honduran congressional seat in 2013, Hernandez "helped the Sinaloa Cartel operate, in essence, as a covert criminal political action committee," in support of his brother, who was then running for president, according to a court document. "The defendant was a Honduran congressman who, along with his brother Juan Orlando Hernandez, played a leadership role in a violent state-sponsored drug trafficking conspiracy," prosecutors added.

Devis Leonel Rivera was a powerful former Honduran drug trafficker who turned himself in to the DEA in 2015. He has admitted to 78 murders and smuggling more than 100 tons of cocaine.

In court, he confessed to paying millions of dollars in bribes to high-level politicians, including $250,000 paid to President Hernandez.

He testified that the bribe was paid to Hernandez's sister and close advisor, Hilda Hernandez, in 2012, to ensure "protection so that we would not be arrested... and so that my brother and I would not be extradited."

Geovanny Fuentes was convicted in federal court in New York on March 22 of partnering with President Hernandez to flood the United States with drugs. "We are going to put drugs up the gringos' noses," Hernandez allegedly told him.

Fuentes operated a cocaine lab in northern Honduras and is also alleged to have paid Hernandez a $25,000 bribe for protection. An accountant testified about the bribe at Fuentes' trial.

The accountant is a protected witness for the prosecution and is not accused of engaging in wrongdoing. He could be called to testify against Hernandez, something that would contradict the president's claim that all accusations against come from confessed drug traffickers and murderers seeking to reduce their sentences.

Confessed drug trafficker Victor Hugo Diaz Morales, alias 'El Rojo,' testified that in 2009 'Tony' Hernandez asked him to pay $100,000 to finance the electoral campaigns of presidential hopeful Porfirio Lobo and then-congressman and future president Juan Orlando Hernandez.

At a birthday party for 'Tony' Hernandez in June 2010, Diaz Morales said that the host confided in him that his brother, Juan Orlando, was going to be the next president of Honduras in 2014. He also said that 'Tony' Hernandez confided to him that when that happens, "there would be in complete power and no problem with drug trafficking in Honduras."

Confessed drug trafficker and former mayor Alexander Ardón testified that he met several times with then-presidential candidate Juan Orlando Hernández to discuss financing his electoral campaigns with drug money. The mayor said he spent $1.6 million on Hernández's successful campaign. "That money came out of drug trafficking profits," he told the court.

He was also a witness to the alleged payment at his home in 2013 of the $1 million in cash from El Chapo.

Juan Carlos Bonilla Valladares, known as "El Tigre," is the former head of the Honduran National Police. He was indicted in a New York federal court in March 2020 for allegedly abusing his positions in Honduran law enforcement to circumvent the law and play a key role in a violent international drug trafficking conspiracy.

"On behalf of convicted former Honduran Congressman Tony Hernandez and his brother the president, Bonilla Valladares oversaw the transshipment of multi-ton loads of cocaine bound for the United States, used machine guns and other weaponry to accomplish this, and engaged in acts of extreme violence, including the murder of a rival trafficker, in furtherance of the conspiracy," prosecutors say.

Mario Jose Calix, alias 'Cubeta,' owns a hotel in Juan Orlando Hernandez's hometown. Born and raised in Gracias, Lempira, Calix was vice mayor of the town between 2010 and 2014. His family owns an attractive local hotel, the Finca del Capitan. According to a DEA interview with Tony Hernandez, it was an open secret that Calix was a drug trafficker.

He was indicted on drug trafficking charges by the Southern District of New York on January 23, 2019, and is a co-defendant in the Tony Hernandez case. Despite an extradition warrant, he has not been captured so far.

US federal prosecutors have complained that Hernandez's government has not cooperated with extradition requests for some key figures in the case against him and his brother.

Nery López Sanabria was captured in June 2018 with nearly $200,000 in cash, weapons and numerous alleged drug ledgers that implicated Tony and Juan Orlando Hernández. They were presented in court by prosecutors as evidence against Tony Hernandez.

Lopez never testified at trial as he was imprisoned in Honduras. However, he had been in talks with the DEA for several months.

He was murdered in jail on October 26, eight days after the jury found Tony Hernandez guilty in New York.

The Valle Valle clan was one of the largest drug cartels in Honduras prior to his arrest and extradition in 2014. Miguel Valle Valle allegedly met with then congressman Juan Orlando Hernandez at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

They were allegedly present at one of the alleged meetings between Tony Hernandez and El Chapo in 2013 where the $1 million bribe was discussed. Other sources say they also paid bribes to President Hernandez that have yet to be publicly disclosed.