By Cassandra Swart
A leak of supposedly private audio recordings from Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram – speculated to come from a source close to former Honduran president and convicted drug trafficker Juan Orlando Hernández – has unmasked an alleged plot to force regime change in Honduras and other Latin American countries.
Said to be spearheaded by US President Donald Trump and supported by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Argentine President Javier Milei and current Honduran President Nasry Asfura, the scheme involves an effort to engineer Hernández’s return to power and undermine left-led governments in other countries.
The leaked files, dating from January to April 2026, have been published by the investigative news outlet Canal Red América Latina, which it says were checked for authenticity through the audio forensic engine Phonexia Voice Inspector. Figures close to Hernández and in some right-wing media outlets have tried to fan speculation that the recordings are deepfakes or AI-generated.
The scandal is receiving widespread coverage across Latin America but has so far been largely ignored by US media. The alleged leaks, dubbed “Hondurasgate,” detail a plan financed by political forces in Israel and Argentina to help restore the former disgraced president of Honduras – who was pardoned by Trump and given special treatment – to political power.
The scheme is portrayed as a follow-up to a previous operation which those on the recordings say assisted in bringing Hernandez’s right-wing National Party back to power via the election of current President Asfura in 2025. That election is often derided for irregularities by the opposition and for threats made against voters supporting the leftist party LIBRE led by outgoing President Xiomara Castro, and those backing centrist candidate Salvador Nasralla.
As detailed in the audio leaks, Asfura is a placeholder president serving as a transitional figure before eventually handing power back to Hernández at the end of his term.
A voice on the recordings who is said to be Hernández discusses how Netanyahu used Israel-aligned political groups in the US to campaign for his release from prison and to raise money for the Trump political donations said to have secured his pardon.
“The pardon money didn’t even come from you,” he tells Asfura. “It came out of a meeting of rabbis, and from people who supported Israel.”
In another leaked recording, the same Hernández voice is heard pressuring a person said to be the speaker of the Honduran Congress, Tomás Zambrano, to strip Asfura of decision-making power in order to speed up impeachment proceedings against opposition figures who have been investigating irregularities in the recent election, like Marlon Ochoa, an electoral councilor from LIBRE.
The Hernández voice then tells Zambrano that he can reverse US, Argentinian and Israeli funding to the National Party if they do not comply with his plans: “You have to regain all the power. And you’re going to do it, because the president [Asfura] isn’t going to do it. The president is busy, traveling here and there. Making friends. And the aid I’m sending. I sent you the people from Israel; they sent you money. I’m the one lobbying here.”
In one of the recordings, a person said to be Cosette López-Osorio of the National Electoral Council (CNE) is heard discussing plans to imprison or assassinate Ochoa: “Once the impeachment is done, we leave. But if not, we leave and give him a free field. But he’ll go with the ‘reward’ of being left alone here in the CNE. That doesn’t seem right to me. First: prison or death. That’s how I’m going to say it – prison or death.”
Zambrano is urged to use any state means necessary, including violence, to repress the opposition, even comparing himself to notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar: “In Honduras, you need force, you need logistics, you need blood. If you want to keep people under control, you need to oppress them. Squeeze them. Counter violence with violence. That’s what President Trump says, and just imagine he’s going to be there forever. How? I don’t know, but just imagine that, and do as I say. And don’t be so soft … Otherwise, you can’t do the job. That’s what Pablo Escobar said.”
On April 16, Ochoa was impeached and removed from office by the Honduran Congress. He has since fled the country, facing credible threats to his freedom and person.
The recordings detail alleged Trump plans to transform Honduras into a client state for wealthy US capitalists. During his 2014-22 presidency, Hernández championed planned Special Zones for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDEs) in the country that handed over the industry and sovereignty of various cities to US and Israeli corporations.
Under the ZEDE rules, the companies would run the areas given to them as corporate city-states where Honduran labour laws, minimum wage laws and environmental laws would not apply.
One of these proposed economic zones, Próspera, garnered heavy investment from both Peter Thiel and Marc Andreeson, two tech billionaires who serve as major supporters of the Trump presidency. Próspera is to be located on the island of Roatán and would be a tax haven startup hub for biotechnology, crypto currency, and financial technology firms. Two other zones are planned for Comayagua and Palmerola.
Construction of these economic zones was halted by the administration of President Xiomara Castro, who campaigned explicitly against giving away Honduras’s sovereignty to US monopolies. In 2024, the Honduran Supreme Court declared these zones to be unconstitutional.
With Castro now out of office, though, the National Party government plans to greatly expand the proposed number of ZEDEs and also give away construction of the Honduras Interoceanic Railway, a massive $20 billion project connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Originally a project of the Castro government that would have been built with Chinese investment, it has now been handed over to a US company, General Electric. China’s involvement is being phased out, a move that lines up with the National Party’s plan to cut ties with Beijing in favor of the government in Taiwan.
Besides the economic zones, the US also plans to build new military bases in Honduras, which had been resisted by Castro. Asfura has also announced the government’s intention to cut $6 billion from social services for working-class families.
The Hondurasgate scheme doesn’t just impact Honduras, however, as the Hernández voice is heard discussing plans for setting up a Latin American news influence operation to spread misinformation against left-wing Latin American governments in other countries. Targets include Mexico, led by Claudia Sheinbaum, and Colombia, led by Gustavo Petro.
The goal would be to manufacture false credibility for politically motivated legal cases launched against these governments by the United States. The news site would rely on funding from the US, Israel and Argentina.
“We’re going to set up a cell, president. From here, from the United States, an informational one, so they can’t track us down in Honduras. It’s going to be like a Latin American news site.
“I was on a call with President Javier Milei, and it went well. Very, very, very good, and I think at this point we can do great things for all of Latin America,” stated the Hernández voice.
“There are cases coming against Mexico, cases coming against Colombia, and most importantly against Honduras – in this case, against the Zelaya family.”
The legal warfare is already underway. On April 29, the US government requested the extradition of ten members of the MORENA government of Mexico, accusing them of involvement in drug trafficking.
The operation exposed in the Hondurasgate investigations, if confirmed to be true, shows that the Trump administration and allied far-right governments pose a threat to the sovereignty of not just Honduras, but the entire Latin American region.
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