Documents and interviews link Col. Elias Melgar Urbina to a convicted drug trafficker and a security company accused of assassinating activists.
Col. Elias Melgar Urbina, a top-ranking Honduran military official and U.S. partner in joint drug war operations, has been tied to a Honduran drug trafficker, according to a U.S. Justice Department filing, and a private security company accused of assassinating land rights activists, according to eyewitness testimony and documents obtained by The Intercept.
Melgar was appointed vice minister of defense by left-leaning President Xiomara Castro in 2022; he is the highest-ranking officer in the Honduran military, which is headed by Castro’s civilian nephew. Last year, Melgar metwith U.S. Army Gen. Laura Richardson, the commander of U.S. Southern Command, to discuss “strengthening cooperation to support mutual security goals,” according to a press release from SOUTHCOM, which runs Joint Task Force Bravo, an airbase in Honduras. “Honduras is a valued & respected security partner,” Richardson tweeted after the meeting. U.S. training of Honduran soldiers, which tapered off as the previous administration was engulfed in drug scandals, has openly resumed under Castro.
In June, Melgar publicly announced his resignation after a riot at a women’s prison in Honduras left dozens of people dead, fueling concerns of a failing security strategy. But contrary to popular perception, he remains in his post. A human rights attaché for the Honduran military told The Intercept that Melgar is still vice minister of defense, and a high-level government minister said he continues to appear at meetings. While questions remain about what prompted his announcement, the defense official has a troubling history that has never been fully reported.
During the trial of Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez in federal district court in Manhattan, U.S. prosecutors suggested the possibility that Melgar himself had links to the drug trade. Fuentes was convicted in March 2021 of conspiring with high-ranking Honduran politicians and military officials to traffic tons of cocaine into the United States. One of Fuentes’s “military contacts,” according to prosecutors, was Melgar.
Meanwhile, a decade before becoming the de facto head of the Honduran military, Melgar was stationed as an intelligence officer in the Aguán Valley, a stretch of Caribbean coast home to industrial African palm plantations. The Aguán has been the site of protracted land disputes between farmer cooperatives and palm oil barons, whose private security guards, working alongside soldiers deployed to the region, have unleashed violence against peasant activists contesting corporate ownership claims.
While Melgar was posted in the Aguán, according to multiple sources — including local farmers, journalists, and a lawyer who worked with land rights activists — he participated in the operations of a notorious private security firm contracted by the largest palm corporation in the region. Peasant groups accused the company of waging a campaign of terror to chase farmers off plantation land — including targeted killings.
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