Cachiros

The Cachiros were one of Honduras’ largest drug trafficking rings, with a net worth of nearly $1 billion. The organization, made up of a family of former cattle rustlers, became a major player in the movement of cocaine between Colombian and Mexican organizations.

The group is believed to have purchased drugs from Colombian organizations, possibly in Nicaragua, and also in their native Honduras, and then moved the cocaine to the Sinaloa Cartel and other Mexican groups.

The Cachiros had vast business and political interests that reached into the upper echelons of the Honduran elite. They had strong contacts in the military and police that served them—particularly in their former stronghold of the department of Colón.

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The Honduran government largely ignored the group. However, the U.S. government took a special interest in the Cachiros, targeting the group’s assets and forcing the Honduran government to seize somewhere between $500 million and $800 million worth of property in September 2013. In a deal reportedly negotiated with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the two leaders of the Cachiros surrendered to U.S. authorities in January 2015, marking the end of the group’s rule.

History

The Cachiros started out as small-time cattle rustlers. Operating along the border between the departments of Olancho and Colón, brothers Javier Eriberto Rivera Maradiaga, alias “Javier Cachiro,” and Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga, apparently with their father’s blessing, began stealing and reselling cattle. Their own holdings expanded over time, and sometime in the late 1990s or early 2000s, they teamed up with the area’s biggest underworld figure, Jorge Anibal Echeverria Ramos, alias “El Coque.”

El Coque was well-positioned financially and politically. He was in a relationship with one of then-congressman Ramon Lobo’s daughters, Margarita. His group was a tight-knit group in a small town. The eldest Rivera Maradiaga, Javier, was in a relationship with El Coque’s sister. Lobo, in turn, owns dozens of plots of land in the region, although no one has formally linked him to criminal activity.

At one point, El Coque and the Rivera Maradiaga family had a falling out that turned bloody. The first attempt on El Coque’s life took place in San Pedro Sula. He survived. The second attempt took place in Costa Rica. Again, he survived, but was then deported to Honduras and imprisoned. Three days after being imprisoned, he was murdered.

With El Coque out of the way, the Cachiros took over. Javier ran the operation. They began making regular deliveries from the department of Gracias a Dios to western Honduras or Guatemala, where they turned the goods over to Mexican buyers or their Guatemalan counterparts.

The timing was right. The Mexicans took over a larger part of the distribution chain, channeling their product through the isthmus. Honduras also went through political turmoil. In 2009, President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya was deposed by the military and expelled from the country. The interim government that followed spent most of its time dealing with the resulting political upheaval. Drugs flowed freely, and Honduras became a major bridge between the Colombian and Mexican drug trafficking organizations.

The Cachiros profited, charging between $2,000 and $2,500 per kilo they moved. They also took control of drug air routes: a 2013 U.S. Treasury Department “Kingpin” designation claimed the group controlled 90 percent of the secret airstrips in Honduras. The profits were enormous, as seizures by the Honduran government in 2013 illustrated.

The leaders of the Cachiros are currently in the custody of the US authorities. During his trial in New York, Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga admitted his participation in the murder of 78 people, including anti-drug czar Julián Arístides Gonzáles, former National Security Advisor Alfredo Landaverde and journalist Anibal Barrow. Furthermore, his testimony implicates members of the political and economic elite in drug trafficking and bribery activities. Among those involved are members of the powerful Rosenthal family; the late Honduran magnate Mauricio Facussé; former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández and his brother Antonio “Tony” Hernández; and former President Porfirio Lobo and his son Fabio.

Many of the people accused by Rivera Maradiaga’s testimony have fallen.

In July 2017, Yani Rosenthal pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court to one count of money laundering, as a U.S. attorney said he “moonlighted as a launderer for a ruthlessly violent drug trafficking organization known as the Cachiros.” And in August 2017, Yani’s cousin, former Honduran investment minister Yankel Rosenthal, also pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to laundering money for the Cachiros organization. Additionally, in 2016, Fabio Lobo pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States and was sentenced to 24 years in a U.S. prison for drug trafficking with the Cachiros.

Tony Hernández was arrested in November 2018 by DEA agents in Miami on drug trafficking charges. He was found guilty in October 2019 after a trial in New York. His brother, the former president, was convicted in 2024 in a U.S. federal court on drug trafficking charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

Another case related to Rivera Maradiaga’s testimony is that of a former regional commander of Honduras’ Special Unit for Criminal Investigation (Dirección Nacional de Investigación Criminal – DNIC), Carlos Alberto Valladares Zuñiga. Valladares was charged in 2018 with conspiring with the Cachiros to protect the group’s drug trafficking, eliminating rivals and recruiting police officers to provide logistical support and security.

Additionally, former Honduran Congressman Midence Oquelí Martínez Turcios pleaded guilty to drug trafficking in a U.S. court in August 2024.

Leadership

The Cachiros were known as a close-knit family business that outsourced much of its work to locals, to whom they owed little loyalty and with whom they had little contact, thus minimizing the risk of an individual cell being compromised.

The alleged leaders of the group were Javier Eriberto Rivera Maradiaga, alias “Javier Cachiro”, and his brother Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga.

Fearing they would be killed in Honduras, both brothers turned themselves in to the DEA in January 2015. Javier Rivera pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges in February.

According to reports in the Honduran media, the last leader of the Cachiros, Hernán Natarén, was murdered along with his wife in July 2016.

Geography

The group operated in the department of Colón on the northeastern coast of Honduras, extending east to Gracias a Dios, south to Olancho and west to the region’s criminal center, the city of San Pedro Sula.

They also had operators in Nicaragua. Contractors received and transported produce from the Mosquito Coast through Gracias a Dios and Colón, where it was divided into smaller and smaller shipments as it traveled through the country.

Allies and enemies

The Cachiros are said to have supplied cocaine and other drugs to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel and have ties to the Colombian criminal organization Rastrojos.

The group also used gangs to transport drugs. They would divide the drugs into packages and put them in backpacks. These were then transported on motorbikes, so they could more easily bypass military checkpoints via back roads.

Outlook

With both leaders now in custody in the United States, the Cachiros’ reign as a major drug trafficking group is over. But as the brothers cooperate with U.S. authorities, it’s possible their testimonies will continue to shed light on the elite networks that supported their group’s activities.

The Rivera Maradiaga brothers’ testimonies have provided a powerful weapon against organized crime in Honduras in recent years. They have led to a series of connections between Honduran presidents and organized crime, including Manuel Zelaya, Porfirio Lobo and the current president, Juan Orlando Hernández.