Social:Hondurasgate

Hondurasgate is the name given to a series of alleged leaks of conversations via audio between right-wing political figures in the Americas — including former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, current President Nasry Asfura, and Argentine President Javier Milei — that revealed an international plan to attack leftist politicians and governments in Honduras and other Latin American countries in the media. The audios also implied the participation of political actors from the United States and Israel to influence politics in Honduras. They were published in April 2026 by the website hondurasgate.ch and the leftist media outlet Canal Red.

Background

In July 2025, an alleged leaked 25-second audio circulated on social media of the president of the National Electoral Council of Honduras (CNE), Cosette López, talking about the approval of the Transmission of Preliminary Electoral Results (TREP) system. One of the disseminators of the audio was a fake page that impersonated the media outlet Radio Cadena Voces. Later, on November 29 of the same year, Attorney General Johel Zelaya publicly exposed a series of 24 audios that again implicated López and other actors in a plan to boycott the future general elections and provoke them to be repeated. The audios were delivered to the Public Prosecutor's Office on a USB stick by Marlon Ochoa, a CNE councilor chosen by the leftist Liberty and Refoundation party, and released without an authentication process. López's defense requested that the Public Prosecutor's Office carry out an expert examination of these audios to verify their authenticity. The request was rejected since López was not listed as a defendant in the case promoted by the Public Prosecutor's Office. Shortly before the elections, former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been sentenced to 45 years in prison in 2024 for the crime of drug trafficking, was pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump, being released on December 1. After this, on December 16, the Public Prosecutor's Office again released three audios of "a former president" from Honduras — who resembled Juan Orlando Hernández — where he gave instructions to declare Nasry Asfura, from the same political party as Hernández, as the winner of the elections. The audios were received via Twitter.

Contents

The audios are fragments of conversations of people identified as former military officer and former right-wing presidential candidate Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, deputy of the Liberal Party Jorge Cálix, Orlando Hernández, president Nasry Asfura, Tomás Zambrano, counselor of the National Electoral Council Cosette López, vice president María Antonieta Mejía and former magistrate of the abolished Supreme Electoral Tribunal David Matamoros.

Interference in Honduras' politics

The audios allegedly reveal an international plan to restore Hernández to power and push for the Zone for Employment and Economic Development. The plan would include the use of evangelical churches so that "people forget the past," according to instructions given by Hernández to Tomás Zambrano. At the same time, the plot contemplates the expansion of the U.S. military presence at strategic points in Honduras, such as the José Enrique Soto Cano air base. Likewise, President Asfura would have agreed to hand over key projects, such as the interoceanic train, to companies such as General Electric.

Interference outside of Honduras

In the international arena, Hondurasgate described a strategy aimed at undermining the political stability of the administrations of Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico and Gustavo Petro in Colombia. Hernández reportedly requested funds to establish a U.S.-based "digital journalism unit" to disseminate fabricated "dossiers" on the Sheinbaum and Petro administrations without the operations being traced back to Honduras.

Reactions

Hernández claimed that the voice in the recordings was not his. An analysis by research group Earshot of three of the recordings found "with a moderate degree of confidence" that they were "authentic recordings of Hernández and Asfura’s voices and are likely not AI generated."

See also

• Operation Condor
• Iran–Contra affair
• Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation
• 2009 Honduran coup d'état
• Monroe Doctrine
• Donroe Doctrine
• 2026 United States intervention in Venezuela
• Corruption in Honduras