(EFE).- A total of 59 migrants from Cuba and Nicaragua were detained this Friday in the department of El Paraíso, in eastern Honduras, as well as four alleged human traffickers who accompanied them, reported an official source.
The arrest, according to a statement from the Honduran Police, occurred in the municipality of Trojes, bordering Nicaragua, when the immigrants were traveling in at least four vehicles driven by the alleged traffickers, also known as coyotes.
The detained Hondurans were brought to justice and will be charged with the crimes of “illicit trafficking in persons,” he added.
The men were captured by agents of the Transnational Criminal Investigation Unit of the Police Directorate of Investigations, in coordination with the Special Tactical Operations Group (GOET).
Cash, four mobile phones and four vehicles were confiscated from the Hondurans detained, according to the police report
The Police indicated that the Hondurans were transferring the Cubans and Nicaraguans from Trojes to the border with Guatemala to continue en route to the United States.
Cash, four mobile phones and four vehicles were seized from the detained Hondurans, according to the police report.
All migrants remain held in an office of the National Institute of Migration, where the authorities will coordinate the return to their countries.
The Honduran authorities have intensified operational actions in border areas, to “combat and counter human trafficking and related crimes.”
The Central American country has become in recent decades a transit point for migrants, especially Cubans and Africans, who cross Central American countries to reach the United States.
More than 3,000 irregular immigrants, mostly Cubans, were detained in Honduras last year for entering illegally, some of them with the intention of reaching the United States, according to figures from the National Migration Institute.
The Government of Honduras has set up four centers in different parts of the country to serve migrants detained for having entered the country irregularly, due to “blind spots”.
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