The heir to the Montes Bobadilla clan controlled drug trafficking in the Honduran Caribbean, had links with Colombian and Mexican cartels and shipped thousands of kilos of cocaine to the United States United until she was captured in March
By
Jorge Cantillo
Police officers escort Herlinda Bobadilla following an extradition request for her and her children by the United States, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. May 15, 2022. REUTERS/Stringer
United States anti-narcotics authorities dealt one of the most powerful drug cartels in Honduras, the Montes Bobadilla, a severe blow in the middle of the month, whose ties to organized crime date back to the 1980s and the golden age of the Cali Cartel in Colombia.
Herlinda Bobadilla, better known as “La Chinda”, was captured on May 15, in an operation where one of her children died and another managed to escape. Just 10 days earlier, a $5 million bounty had been placed on the heads of the three.
The images of “La Chinda”, a 61-year-old woman, handcuffed by the authorities and the accusation of being the head of a drug cartel accused of transporting thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States, raised doubts about who this was. character, and the origin of this family clan that over the years has managed to consolidate its power in Central America as a bridge between Colombian drug traffickers and Mexicans.
Women and mob
Far from the figure of the wife as a silent accomplice, or the submissive mother victim of the world of crime, history has several examples of women who have not only played an important role in the evolution and consolidation of drug cartels in America, but in many cases they are the “bosses” who pull the strings of their organizations, using preconceptions about their sex to go unnoticed by the authorities.
Especially in Central America, figures like the Honduran Digna Valle, who directed the family cartel of “Los Valle” with an iron fist and who, with her confessions before the North American justice system, ended up dismantling her organization; or Marllory Chacón Rossell, better known as “The Queen of the South” who directed a millionaire money laundering operation in Guatemala; can be cited as examples.
Digna Valle was the patron saint of the Valle family clan, one of the most fearsome drug gangs in Honduras.
Certainly, Herlinda Bobadilla fits into this list, especially since 2017, when a power vacuum After the capture of one of her sons, he put her at the top of his criminal organization.
Herlinda was born in October 1961 in the town of Macuelizo, Honduras, located about 290 kilometers from the capital Tegucigalpa. Along with his family, he settled in the north of the country, in the Colón region, where the clan’s activities were concentrated.
According to the portal Insight Crime< /i>, specialized in the analysis and investigation of organized crime, this Honduran region is strategic for the transport of the drug that the cartels to the south of the continent seek to take to Mexico, and increasingly, to Europe.
The experts point out that Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are three crucial countries in the coca route, since in them the “change of hands” between the Colombian cartels, currently dedicated mainly to the production, and the Mexican cartels, which today have predominant control of the business and of exports to the United States.
Herlinda’s rise to power was gradual, and her first milestone was her marriage to Alejandro Montes Alvarenga, with whom he had six children, including Alejandro (better known as Tito), José Carlos and Noé. The three of them fully immersed themselves in the family clan and the last one ended up receiving the baton of the organization.
Since 2017, Herlinda Bobadilla has been in charge of her family clan and has managed to expand and consolidate it, increasing drug shipments and even producing her own cocaine. REUTERS/Stringer
The Honduran allies of Cali
In the 1980s, Pedro García Montes was the trusted man in Honduras of the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers, heads of the Cali Cartel.
According to the Colombian authorities, García Montes served the Caleños as chief of payments, cargo that he obtained after spending 15 years working for the organization and coordinating the passage through Honduras of the drug that was going from Colombia to Mexico and that had the United States as its final destination.
During the golden age of the Colombian cartels, during the 80’s and 90’s, Medellín, Cali and then Norte del Valle, controlled almost the entire drug trafficking chain, from production to sale on US soil, having organizations from Panama to Mexico as intermediaries for your business.
Since the activity was concentrated in Colombia, García Montes also did so, obtaining Colombian citizenship as he was almost completely settled in the country. He was only going to Honduras to coordinate the transportation of the drug, which he paid for with high-caliber weapons that ended up in the hands of the Colombian guerrillas.
Alex Adán Montes Bobadilla, Herlinda’s cousin, was the one who linked her and his children with the powerful cartel founded by Petro García Montes, his cousin, an old ally of the Cali Cartel.
In 2001 he was arrested in Honduras for money laundering crimes, when his façade as a lobster merchant fell, and although he inexplicably regained his freedom, he was already in the sights of the authorities.
Three years later, in 2004, Pedro García Montes was assassinated while walking down a street in the Bocagrande neighborhood of Cartagena, Colombia, by hit men hired by a rival cartel who were paid 20 million Colombian pesos ( about $5,000) for the hit.
By then, Pedro had already brought his cousin Álex Adán Montes Bobadilla into the business, who began his career as a drug trafficker in 1998, loading speedboats with drugs in Honduras, coordinating the transportation of the merchandise that his cousin was bringing to the next point of illegal export chain, exchanging weapons as payment for cocaine and collaborating in money laundering operations.
In 2003 he was captured for the first time, while transporting 423 kilos of coca in a boat, but he was sentenced to house arrest. He also survived an attack on his home and decided to move permanently to Colombia.
It was he who involved his cousin Herlinda Bodadilla, and their three children: Tito, José Carlos and Noé, to business, who remained in charge of the drug transport operation in the Honduran regions of Colón and Atlántida.
Noé Montes Bobadilla was arrested in 2017 and is serving a 37-year prison sentence in the United States.
Adán was arrested in 2007 and extradited to Honduras, where he finally died in November 2014 after being granted a house arrest. That is why the head of the cartel was headed by Noé Montes Bobadilla.
Since the death of Álex Adán, the United States authorities have been on the trail of the rest of his family, launching a manhunt that culminated this year in the capture of Herlinda.
The rise and fall of “La Chinda”.
The reign of Noé Montes Bobadilla lasted just three years, since in 2017 the authorities captured, two years later,in 2019 he received a 37-year prison sentence for having trafficked thousands of kilos of cocaine to the United States.
Since 2017 is when, according to the DEA , Herlinda assumes full control of the cartel’s operations, helping its criminal activities reach even higher levels than in the hands of its predecessors.
Under his command, Transport operations increased and even, according to Honduran intelligence sources, it ventured into the cultivation of coca leaves to produce its own shipments.
“Her leadership roles in the Montes drug trafficking organization have grown significantly since the 2017 arrest and 2019 extradition to the United States of Herlinda’s third son, Noé Montes Bobadilla,” says the United States Department of State in a statement issued in early May, in which a reward of 5 million dollars was offered for each of the three leaders of the clan.
On May 6, the United States Government offered 5 million dollars for Herlinda and its two children.
This was the latest move in an international persecution against Herlinda and her children, who have been targeted by the authorities since 2015, shortly after Noé assumed leadership of the organization.
In In 2017, when Noé was captured, some 40 properties belonging to Herlinda, located mostly in the province of Colón, were seized by the Honduran government.
But Everything came to an end in mid-March, when a huge operation of the Honduran Special Forces was deployed, who reached the whereabouts of Herlinda and her sons Tito and José Carlos.
In the shooting that broke out, Tito was killed and José Carlos fled and is still at large.
But the most notorious result was the capture of Herlinda, who was taken away in handcuffs and transported by helicopter to Tegucigalpa to face charges of drug trafficking, corruption and money laundering, among many others.
In addition, he awaits prompt extradition to the United States, where Noé is serving his 39-year sentence behind bars.
Herlinda Bobadilla, 61, was captured in an operation in which her son Tito died and her other son Juan Carlos fled. REUTERS/Stringer
With the capture of Herlinda and the escape of José Carlos, a great question arises about the future of this originally transport organization that has managed to maintain and consolidate itself, to date, while others have disappeared in Central America.
“These transportation groups have played the role of intermediary smugglers for large drug trafficking organizations for decades,” says the Insight Crime portal in an analysis of the clan.
< p class=”paragraph”>They also highlight that the ties of the Bobadilla Mountains with Colombia are maintained and that today they are associated with the so-called “Gulf Clan”, those who receive, process and in some cases produce cocaine.
It is unclear if this family clan will survive after becoming virtually headless, or if there will be a power vacuum in northern Honduras that will produce the rise of a new clan to continue the business.