The disgraced former president of Honduras helped traffic hundreds of tons of cocaine into the US and took millions of dollars in bribes from violent drug traffickers like El Chapo, an indictment unsealed Thursday said.

Former head of state Juan Orlando Hernández — who was extradited to the US Thursday to face drug and arms trafficking charges in federal court in New York City – used the money to fund his political campaigns and commit voter fraud, prosecutors said.

“As is charged in the indictment, Hernández abused his position as president of Honduras from 2014 through 2022 to operate the country as a Narco state,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters at a news conference announcing the charges.

Hernández’s activities corrupted organizations like the national police, military and Honduras’ Congress as he and co-conspirators offered protection for international drug traffickers and even used government resources to protect shipments from other countries en route to the US, Garland said.

Hernández, a onetime ally of the US in the region, led the country for eight years before leaving office in January. 

Behind the scenes, Hernández was giving drug traffickers military and law enforcement information to evade capture – and he allegedly told a cocaine lab operator he was going to “stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos,” the indictment claims.

Damian Williams, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the former president – who also had served in Congress – took millions in bribes, including the $1 million payment from Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the former head of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel.

“In exchange Hernández and his co-conspirators helped push 500,000 kilograms of cocaine into the United States – that’s 500 tons of cocaine – a poison that landed in this country, on our streets,” Williams said.

“And as we alleged in the indictment, that’s exactly what Hernandez wanted,” he added, referencing the alleged “gringo” statement.

The former president’s brother was convicted of drug trafficking and other charges in Manhattan federal court in 2019 and sentenced to life in prison for the crimes, federal authorities said. 

The brother, former Honduran Congressman Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, was convicted of distributing some 185 tons of cocaine into the US over a 15-year period through a state-sponsored narcotics conspiracy. 

In 2020, federal prosecutors in New York alleged ex-president Hernández shielded a drug trafficker in the country from prosecution in exchange for a $25,000 bribe. 

Hernández met with the alleged drug kingpin, Geovanny Daniel Fuentes Ramirez, on a number of occasions beginning in 2013, the feds allege. 

Hernández allegedly offered the country’s armed services to protect a cocaine “laboratory” he developed near a commercial shipping port in the nation. 

The former president also allegedly directed Ramirez to report directly to his brother in his cocaine trafficking enterprise.