On September 3, 2024, InSight Crime published a video showing Carlos Zelaya, the brother-in-law of Honduran President Xiomara Castro, in a room full of the country’s most powerful drug traffickers.
The video was taken in 2013, and in it, Zelaya is seen negotiating campaign contributions for Castro’s bid for the presidency. She lost that election but later leaned on an anti-corruption message to get elected in 2021. The video effectively blew up that narrative and left Castro and the ruling Libre Party vulnerable to criticism.
This is the story of how we got that video, told by Jeff Ernst, one of the two determined journalists who obtained it.
How InSight Crime tracked down an explosive narco video in Honduras | By Jeff Ernst and David Adams.
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