Narco Mansions in Honduras
In May of 2022, I visited the hometown of what had long been one of the most powerful drug trafficking families in Honduras. The cartel known as Los Valle Valle had its base in the department of Copán, near the Guatemala border. Multiple family members who led the cartel built opulent houses in the middle of extreme poverty. But the houses were abandoned as the cartel leaders were, one by one, arrested or killed. As part of a reporting trip with VICE News, I photographed the ruins of these once luxurious houses. It provided a window into how the drug traffickers lived and also their aspirations: A discarded photo of the drug trafficker Tony Montana from the movie Scarface; a sculpture of Michelangelo’s David, and miniature houses for children to play in. For me, this assignment offered a unique way to show the hidden lives of drug traffickers.
(Since 2014, these houses have been seized by the government of Honduras).