The Office of the Prosecutor against Corruption is investigating a complaint by the Honduran Association of Texas, which states that the consulate charged excessive costs for the processing of passports.

It is argued that besides the $75 passport processing fee, the diplomatic official in charge of the Consul, David Hernández, charged an additional $35 to fund mobile consulates.

Corruption prosecutors visited the offices of the Foreign Ministry to record the official statement of the Vice Minister. Deputy Foreign Minister Rivera admitted that the mobile consulates, and the extra charge for them, are not authorized by Foreign Ministry; but, operate on a discretionary basis by the consuls.

“We expect the investigation to yield results sufficient to establish guilt or innocence of our consul general,” he said.

Rivera said that monies received for the processing of passports is deposited into an account in the name of the Honduran consulate.
In order to verify the above, the Prosecutor asked Rivera for a report on the handling of the accounts.

“What we look for is whether the Chancery allowed the consul to charge for mobile consulates, and we look at if it is normal, in other consulates, to charge for those services, and if there is a rule for setting fees,” said Investigator Aníbal Izaguirre. She added that they seek to establish whether or not the amount of $110 will be charged or not to Hondurans in the U.S., and if the additional amount that was charged, was deposited into the accounts of the State.