>>4714789 (pb) Honduras’s 5 Families

When Corruption Is the Operating System: The Case of Honduras

Kleptocratic networks focus on those economic activities that are most likely to generate and concentrate exponential returns in relatively few hands, especially by way of government favoritism, or that are most likely to attract significant international financing.

PALM OIL

Apart from cattle (and dairy), the only agricultural commodity in which the private-sector elements of Honduras’s kleptocratic network have established a significant stake is palm oil. Almost immediately following the 2009 coup, companies belonging to Facussés among others began aggressively moving in on farmlands along the central Caribbean coast, in the Bajo Aguán Valley (Colón Department). The objective was the intensive cultivation of African palm trees—either to respond to the international demand for cheap cooking oil, or to anticipate a more economically significant shift from fossil fuels to biodiesel—which is also dubbed a clean form of energy.

Honduran palm continues to benefit from a robust trade in carbon credits.

https://carnegieendowment.org/2017/05/30/private-sector-network-members-pub-70005