Hospital Escuela guard and driver held with 300 marijuana packages in ambulance
Honduran police stopped a Hospital Escuela ambulance on 7 April 2020 and arrested its driver and a security guard, both Barrio 18 members, after finding about 300 packages of marijuana hidden in a fake stretcher. Both men were later sentenced to nine years in prison.
🇭🇳 kilo 13 police post on the Olancho road, colonia Cerro Grande, Tegucigalpa, Francisco Morazán · Honduras
Officers stopped the hospital’s ambulance HEU-201 at a police post at kilometre
13 on the road out of Tegucigalpa toward Olancho.[1]A prosecution laboratory
later confirmed that the dried plant material seized was marijuana.[2]
Mario Fu, spokesman for the National Anti-Gang Force (FNAMP), said intelligence
had tracked the pair as Barrio 18 gang members who used the ambulance to move
weapons and drugs.[3]He said they used the ambulance and its siren to pass
roadblocks during the coronavirus curfew.[3]Officers from the Military
Police, FNAMP and the Police Intelligence Directorate (Dipol) took part in the
interception.[1]Police said the two were also under investigation over
vehicle theft, weapons transfers and facilitating robberies, attacks and escapes
inside the hospital.[1]
Under a shortened procedure the prosecution obtained nine-year prison sentences
against both men on 20 October 2021, convicting them of aggravated illicit drug
trafficking and linking them to the Pandilla 18.[4]At sentencing the
prosecution put the load at 669 packages, against the roughly 300 first reported
at their arrest.[4]Prosecutors said the pair will serve their sentence at the
Támara prison.[4]
Photos and video
Two men of the Mara 18 gang escorted by members of the National Force against Gangs beside packages of drugs while presented to the press in Tegucigalpa on 7 April 2020. Photo: AFPPhoto details
Ministerio Público de Hondurasmp.hnESNueve años de prisión en contra de empleados del Hospital Escuela que transportaban 669 paquetes de marihuana en ambulancia
Open questions the AI reported
No weight was published for the marijuana at any stage, only the package counts, so no kilograms are recorded.
Accounts differ on the quantity: reporters and the first day's statements put the load at about 300 packages, while the prosecution's April 2020 and October 2021 notices put it at 409 and then 669 packages; this report uses the 300 reported at the arrest.
The charged figure of two refers to the men prosecuted, who were arrested on 7 April; the first hearing was on 10 April 2020 and the sentence followed in October 2021.
The outlets differ on which agency spoke: AFP calls the spokesman's force the National Anti-Extortion Force, while Honduran reports place him with the National Anti-Gang Force (FNAMP); the report follows the Honduran reporting.
The exact spot of the interception is described as a police post at kilometre 13 on the Olancho road beside the Cerro Grande bus terminal; the coordinates mark central Tegucigalpa, not that post.
The photo in the opened account is a general presentation of the two detainees with drug packages; no separate picture of the ambulance itself was listed because its direct image address could not be recovered from the pages opened.
Left out, as its quotation was not found in La Prensa (Honduras): Honduran security forces arrested Junior Joaquín Rivera Sánchez, 37, a security guard, and Héctor Leonel Dubón Sam, 54, an ambulance driver, both Hospital Escuela employees, on the morning of 7 April 2020.
Left out, as its quotation was not found in El Pulso: The two men said they were carrying a seriously injured patient, but police found 300 packages of suspected marijuana hidden in a makeshift wooden stretcher.
Left out, as its quotation was not found in La Prensa (Honduras): The marijuana had been carried from Olancho department toward the capital, and sniffer dogs located it under the ambulance stretcher.
Left out, as its quotation was not found in La Prensa (Honduras): A court ordered the two held in pre-trial detention on charges of illicit drug trafficking, and the prosecution said they were prosecuted for aggravated illicit drug trafficking.
Police on patrol in El Encino, Esquipulas del Norte, Olancho, arrested a person found with more than 70 small bags of marijuana. The detainee is to answer for unlawful drug possession.
Military police detained two alleged MS-13 members in La Barranquilla, San Marcos de Colón, Choluteca, seizing suspected marijuana, suspected cocaine, a pistol and phones. The haul included about one pound of suspected marijuana plus a small bag and 39 wraps, and the suspects were sent to the Daet for investigation.
Border police arrested a 24-year-old Guatemalan at El Florido in Copán on 26 October 2026 and seized four packages of suspected marijuana weighing about seven pounds. He was sent to Copán Ruinas for drug-trafficking charges; lab tests were pending.
Police detained four Nicaraguan men in Banco Grande, Trojes, seizing three bags of suspected marijuana, a rifle and two phones. The men face alleged drug trafficking and illegal weapons charges and were linked preliminarily to the Los Nica structure.
