We've written about this before, but the story has today come back to life with new details, new accusations. Ramon Sabilllon Pineda, who as head of the National Police helped dismantle the Valle Valle Cartel in Honduras, says that at least one of the Valle Valle family members told him that there were 15 currently serving politicians whose campaigns were funded by the drug traffickers in Honduras. Sabillón indicated both the Liberal and National Parties political campaigns were funded by the narco-cartels. Sabillón stated that the National Party contact for drug funding was Juan Antonio "Tony" Hernandez Alvarado, a.k.a. "el hermano de El Hombre", the brother of President Juan Orlando Hernandez Alvarado. Sabillón also ties Tony Hernandez to the ex-mayor of El Paraiso Alexander Ardon, a competitor with the Valle Valle family for control of the drug trade in western Honduras.
Sabillon provided the following transcript to Globo TV during an on-camera interview two days ago:
Drug Trafficker: This arrest, its it because of politics?
Sabillón: What are you referring to? The arrest warrant was carried out quickly.
Drug Trafficker: Yes, General, I finance the Liberal Party and I'm pursued because I'm a Liberal.
Sabillón: Finance what? Finance political campaigns? give t-shirts? What do you finance?
Drug Trafficker: Yes, political campaigns, General. But why do you not do anything with the Cartel of the National Party, or the Cartel of the Conservatives (cachurecos)?
Sabillón: Tell me a name.
Drug Trafficker: The Mayor of El Paraiso, Copan, Chagel Ardon and the brother who works with him.
Sabillón: Whose brother?
Drug Trafficker: The brother of The Man
Sabillón: Which man?
Drug Trafficker: You already know the Man I'm talking about.
We know now, two days later, that the "Drug Trafficker" was one of the Valle Valle family, captured by Sabillon's police and later extradited to the US. We also know now that the drug cartels are financing the political campaigns of both the Liberal and National parties in Honduras. All of the Honduran cartel's closed down in the last two years were those that were financing the Liberal party: the Valle Valle, Chepe Handal, and the Rivera Maradiaga cartels.
The "brother of The Man", Tony Hernandez, was elected to Congress in the same year his brother was elected President, the election of 2013. Tony is a lawyer, and as such defended two Colombians who were caught, twice, growing opium poppies, marijuana, and with a lab for processing cocaine and heroin in La Iguala, Lempira, in 2013, during the election campaign. The Colombians, Reuben Dario Pinilla and Freddy Roland Jiménez, were captured for the second time on July 25, 2013 in La Iguala. They had entered Honduras illegally, and had false identification papers. They were both captured on the property that housed a drug lab, and had four greenhouses with opium poppy seedlings growing in them. Fields with opium poppies and marijuana plants were found on the property as well. With the law office of Tony Hernandez representing them, the Colombians were released by the judge hearing the case at the initial hearing, before any evidence had been heard. After they were released, the Colombians fled the country. A later investigation which went no where, none-the-less found that several people, including the judge, had split about $150,000 in bribes.
In addition to his legal office, Tony Hernandez is a National Party member, a Congress person for the Department of Lempira, elected in 2013. He serves as the head of the Congressional Commission on Development and Social Protections. Along with his sister Hilda Hernandez , he owns the Hotel Posada de Don Juan in Gracias, Lempira. Hilda Hernandez is the Minister of Communications for her other brother, the President, Juan Orlando Hernandez.
Alexander Ardon and his brother Alfredo are the leaders of the "AA Brothers Cartel", as Honduran Intelligence named it. They were rivals of the Valle Valle cartel, and controlled the drug trade in much of the Departments of Copan and Ocotepeque for the Sinaloa Cartel. Alfredo was well connected in the National Party. He helped run the party's campaign in 2013 in Western Honduras, and after the election was re-appointed to the commission that allocates funding to road building ("Fondo Vial") before disappearing in 2014. His brother Alexander also disappeared in 2014, just before the raids on the Valle Valle family. In 2015 there were rumors that the AA brothers had negotiated with the DEA to turn themselves in, but the rumors turned out to be false.
The allegation that Tony Hernandez is the National Party's connection to drug money for financing campaigns is not new. Its been discussed in some of the Honduran press since the Colombian's captured in-flagrante were released without a real hearing. Sabillón is the first high government official to give voice to the claim, for which he is now suspended from the police.
Showing posts with label Alexander Ardon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alexander Ardon. Show all posts
Friday, April 22, 2016
Monday, December 16, 2013
Detecting Voting Fraud in Honduras: El Paraíso, Copan
Since the Honduran election ended, we have busy here: we captured the Tribunal Supremo Electoral's election results, and placed them, along with the Voto Social vote count, in a database.
That means we are in a position to analyze apparent voting pattern across the country. And there are some glaring anomalies in the voting.
None of these is more apparent than the case of voting in El Paraíso, Copan, where the voter turnout, according to the TSE numbers, was 85%. That would be exceptional participation, compared to previous Honduran elections, and is far above the average levels of participation in this election.
El Paraíso is an interesting place. Its Mayor, Alexander Ardon, is widely considered to be a member of the Sinaloa cartel in Honduras. In a report on organized crime in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, the Wilson Center reported:
One correction: it's not just norteño music: it's narcocorridos that characterize the bands flown in to El Paraíso.
Voting was definitely distorted in El Paraíso on November 24th.
One election monitoring group reported that 50 election workers from out of town staying in a hotel were locked in the night before the election, surrounded by over 100 armed men who threatened to shoot them if they tried to leave the hotel and assume their poll duties. Another such group got out of the hotel, but were stopped along the way by armed men, who slashed their tires and told them if they continued onward, they'd be killed. The group in the hotel was freed late in the day on Nov. 24 by Officer Erazo Mejia of the police, but were later locked up in another place and their election credentials stolen.
Adrienne Pine has an account from one of these poll workers whose tires were slashed. The group waited until 4:40 AM for police to come and help them obtain new tires, then drove on to their polling places. This group were representatives of LIBRE. They were met at the polling place by a group of armed men who controlled the location, not the military, who they report just stood around. The LIBRE group was told it was not welcome there. Shortly thereafter there was an altercation between the local police and the armed group, which kicked out the police, then confiscated the identity cards and election credentials of all the LIBRE workers, before kicking them out. The armed group tried to get the LIBRE representatives to sign the ballot tally forms, at gunpoint, but at least some still refused, and all were thrown out of the polling place. At the doorway to the polling place they saw individuals questioning voters before they entered, and they report that if the prospective voters were not voting for Juan Orlando Hernández, they were not permitted in to vote.
LIBRE formally asked the TSE to invalidate the tally sheets from those precincts, but the TSE counted them. You can see one such acta here.
Here's how to read it. The polling station was issued 320 ballots. That means that there are 304 citizens eligible to vote there, plus up to 16 party representatives (which adds up to 320 ballots). In the vote count, they reported 308 valid votes, plus 16 nullified ballots, which is 324 ballots, four more than they were issued or should have needed.
Not only did the TSE count this acta, signed by 4 poll workers and two alternates (none of them LIBRE members): it ignored the over-vote.
This means that somehow, in the TSE's vote counting software, the check for more people voting than ballots issued either isn't implemented properly, isn't implemented at all, or someone at the TSE ignored the system to OK this acta.
Given the OAS report of its audit of the vote counting software, it is not unlikely that an over-vote test either wasn't implemented, or didn't work.
This tally sheet was not even subject to special scrutiny (escrutinio especial), or it would have been issued a new, less informative vote count sheet, looking like the one found here for acta 314.
Another example from the same region is MER 2670. They were issued 377 ballots to cover the 361 eligible votes plus 16 party representatives. They report the total ballots cast as 348. But the individual candidate's votes, plus blank and null votes, add up to 404! This would mean they had a voter turnout of 112%!
MER 2687 should have qualified for special scrutiny as well. Actas with similar mistakes were scrutinized and replaced elsewhere, but not in El Paraíso for some reason. The acta for MER 2687 reports 320 ballots issued for its 304 eligible votes plus up to sixteen party representatives. Six people signed the acta and on the line where they report how many people voted, they reported six. This acta, in reality, reports on 304 votes, including blank and null votes. Six of those votes were presumably by poll workers, so the effective turnout is 98%.
The TSE accepted "6" as the count of voters who voted and used it in counting how many citizens voted, which means the numbers it reports for this MER are false. Apparently the software does not check that the number of votes is equal to the number of people who voted, a required sanity check for any such vote counting system.
MER 2691 also shows anomalies. They were issued 222 ballots for 206 eligible voters plus up to 16 poll workers. In total, 210 votes were reported cast, and six of those were by poll workers. That means that only 2 of the precinct's eligible voters supposedly didn't vote. That would be extraordinary.
MER 2693 shows the same issue. They were issued 179 ballots for 163 eligible voters plus up to 16 poll workers. They report 166 votes, and only 5 poll workers voted, meaning that only 2 of their eligible voters didn't vote. The same can be said about MERs 2711, 2712, and 2713.
Voter turnouts in the 80-100% range should be suspect.
No poll watchers reported such extremely high turnouts anywhere in Honduras.
But in the 47 MER that comprise El Paraíso, 51% (n=24) reported voter turnout above 90%.
Only 36.1% (n=17) MER in El Paraíso reported a voter turnout of less than 85%. If we set the threshold lower, to 75%-- still a great turnout level for Honduras-- then only 27% (n = 13) had voter turnouts less than 75%.
These are extraordinary levels of voter participation.
Extraordinary-- and suspect under any circumstances. But not troubling to the TSE in Honduras.
That means we are in a position to analyze apparent voting pattern across the country. And there are some glaring anomalies in the voting.
None of these is more apparent than the case of voting in El Paraíso, Copan, where the voter turnout, according to the TSE numbers, was 85%. That would be exceptional participation, compared to previous Honduran elections, and is far above the average levels of participation in this election.
El Paraíso is an interesting place. Its Mayor, Alexander Ardon, is widely considered to be a member of the Sinaloa cartel in Honduras. In a report on organized crime in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, the Wilson Center reported:
Honduran police intelligence says that El Paraíso, Copan Mayor Alexander Ardon works with the Sinaloa Cartel. Ardon has built a town hall that resembles the White House, complete with a heliport on the roof, and travels with 40 heavily armed bodyguards. Cameras monitor the roads leading in and out of town, intelligence services say. And there are reports that the Mayor often closes the city to outsiders for big parties that include norteño music groups flown in from Mexico.
One correction: it's not just norteño music: it's narcocorridos that characterize the bands flown in to El Paraíso.
Voting was definitely distorted in El Paraíso on November 24th.
One election monitoring group reported that 50 election workers from out of town staying in a hotel were locked in the night before the election, surrounded by over 100 armed men who threatened to shoot them if they tried to leave the hotel and assume their poll duties. Another such group got out of the hotel, but were stopped along the way by armed men, who slashed their tires and told them if they continued onward, they'd be killed. The group in the hotel was freed late in the day on Nov. 24 by Officer Erazo Mejia of the police, but were later locked up in another place and their election credentials stolen.
Adrienne Pine has an account from one of these poll workers whose tires were slashed. The group waited until 4:40 AM for police to come and help them obtain new tires, then drove on to their polling places. This group were representatives of LIBRE. They were met at the polling place by a group of armed men who controlled the location, not the military, who they report just stood around. The LIBRE group was told it was not welcome there. Shortly thereafter there was an altercation between the local police and the armed group, which kicked out the police, then confiscated the identity cards and election credentials of all the LIBRE workers, before kicking them out. The armed group tried to get the LIBRE representatives to sign the ballot tally forms, at gunpoint, but at least some still refused, and all were thrown out of the polling place. At the doorway to the polling place they saw individuals questioning voters before they entered, and they report that if the prospective voters were not voting for Juan Orlando Hernández, they were not permitted in to vote.
LIBRE formally asked the TSE to invalidate the tally sheets from those precincts, but the TSE counted them. You can see one such acta here.
Here's how to read it. The polling station was issued 320 ballots. That means that there are 304 citizens eligible to vote there, plus up to 16 party representatives (which adds up to 320 ballots). In the vote count, they reported 308 valid votes, plus 16 nullified ballots, which is 324 ballots, four more than they were issued or should have needed.
Not only did the TSE count this acta, signed by 4 poll workers and two alternates (none of them LIBRE members): it ignored the over-vote.
This means that somehow, in the TSE's vote counting software, the check for more people voting than ballots issued either isn't implemented properly, isn't implemented at all, or someone at the TSE ignored the system to OK this acta.
Given the OAS report of its audit of the vote counting software, it is not unlikely that an over-vote test either wasn't implemented, or didn't work.
This tally sheet was not even subject to special scrutiny (escrutinio especial), or it would have been issued a new, less informative vote count sheet, looking like the one found here for acta 314.
Another example from the same region is MER 2670. They were issued 377 ballots to cover the 361 eligible votes plus 16 party representatives. They report the total ballots cast as 348. But the individual candidate's votes, plus blank and null votes, add up to 404! This would mean they had a voter turnout of 112%!
MER 2687 should have qualified for special scrutiny as well. Actas with similar mistakes were scrutinized and replaced elsewhere, but not in El Paraíso for some reason. The acta for MER 2687 reports 320 ballots issued for its 304 eligible votes plus up to sixteen party representatives. Six people signed the acta and on the line where they report how many people voted, they reported six. This acta, in reality, reports on 304 votes, including blank and null votes. Six of those votes were presumably by poll workers, so the effective turnout is 98%.
The TSE accepted "6" as the count of voters who voted and used it in counting how many citizens voted, which means the numbers it reports for this MER are false. Apparently the software does not check that the number of votes is equal to the number of people who voted, a required sanity check for any such vote counting system.
MER 2691 also shows anomalies. They were issued 222 ballots for 206 eligible voters plus up to 16 poll workers. In total, 210 votes were reported cast, and six of those were by poll workers. That means that only 2 of the precinct's eligible voters supposedly didn't vote. That would be extraordinary.
MER 2693 shows the same issue. They were issued 179 ballots for 163 eligible voters plus up to 16 poll workers. They report 166 votes, and only 5 poll workers voted, meaning that only 2 of their eligible voters didn't vote. The same can be said about MERs 2711, 2712, and 2713.
Voter turnouts in the 80-100% range should be suspect.
No poll watchers reported such extremely high turnouts anywhere in Honduras.
But in the 47 MER that comprise El Paraíso, 51% (n=24) reported voter turnout above 90%.
Only 36.1% (n=17) MER in El Paraíso reported a voter turnout of less than 85%. If we set the threshold lower, to 75%-- still a great turnout level for Honduras-- then only 27% (n = 13) had voter turnouts less than 75%.
These are extraordinary levels of voter participation.
Extraordinary-- and suspect under any circumstances. But not troubling to the TSE in Honduras.
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