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Carlos Alexis Mencía, known as 'El Gato Negro,' was arrested Tuesday in La Ceiba as the main suspect in the May 21 massacre at an African palm plantation in Rigores, Colón.

Authorities arrested Carlos Alexis Molina Mencía, alias "Gato Negro," near La Ceiba in connection with the May 21 massacre in Rigores, Colón, and believe six to seven people were involved in the killing of 20 victims.

Five National Police officers were killed in a violent ambush at a house in Corinto belonging to a leader of a criminal organization linked to the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel; investigators say about 150 gang members participated in the attack.

Honduran armed forces have destroyed more than 515,000 coca bushes across at least 25 illegal plantations and nine drug-processing sites in six departments so far this year, including a newly secured crop of 16,500 plants in Colón.

Anti-narcotics police and the Honduran Armed Forces dismantled a coca plantation of roughly 11,000 plants in the mountainous Santa Bárbara area of Iriona municipality, Colón department.

Authorities are investigating whether the May 21 massacre of 20 people in Rigores, Trujillo, was retaliation for the February killing of Ruth Nohemy Monroy, 17, the wife of recently arrested gang leader Alexis Molina Mencía.

Armed forces discovered a coca plantation and a makeshift drug-processing lab in the Río Tinto mountain range of Colón department, bringing the year-to-date total to over 500,000 coca plants and nine processing sites seized across six departments.