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Authorities say a dispute between criminal groups over territory and a 700-kilogram cocaine shipment triggered a shootout in remote Belén, Gracias a Dios in August 2013, leaving 14–17 dead and more than a dozen missing, though the exact toll and circumstances remain unclear.

Olvin Javier Velásquez Maldonado, 40, was sentenced to more than four years in prison for conspiring to transport 24 kilograms of cocaine hidden in a boat traveling from Utila to Louisiana in 2022; his fingerprints on the drug packaging provided key evidence.

US authorities deported Isaías José Rodríguez Manzanares, identified as an MS-13 member with ties to Mexico's Cártel del Noreste, after he pleaded guilty to a reduced drug possession charge and served a two-year sentence in Texas.

Alexander Montoya Úsuga, a cousin of jailed Clan del Golfo leader "Otoniel" and a key operator for the organization, used La Ceiba and Roatán as a base to coordinate cocaine shipments and money laundering between South America and the United States before his 2021 extradition to the US.

Five members of the Reyes family were found slain in their San Pedro Sula home on June 17, 2004; investigators suspect drug trafficking, but no one has been convicted in the case despite evidence of hidden compartments and unexplained wealth.