Nur Garcia’s mother – a former teacher who has served on several of Honduras’ main corruption prosecution committees – said Garcia, who is married, had not done the work she was paid to do.

“She’s had jobs with local government and local corporations. If these corporations knew what she really did, they would have fired her years ago,” her mother said.

Honduras has long been a breeding ground for narco-traffickers for cocaine and marijuana but has also become a major smuggling hub for weapons and drugs in recent years.

With two candidates from the opposition – the socialist Sandro Rosell and the conservative incumbent Porfirio Lobo – vying for leadership, the country is not likely to hold a general election before 2018, when the next president will be sworn in and the Constituent Assembly may well choose a new president.

The main opposition, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC, is still fighting guerilla fighters who seized control of the country’s former oil-rich province of La Union in 2009.

Since then, guerrilla groups have gained footholds in other states and cities along the porous 1,400km (650-mile) borders with Colombia and Mexico, where they transport weapons and goods across the frontier and are regularly confronted by Colombian forces stationed in the region.

The country also borders the United States, so drugs have been a frequent issue in U.S.-backed counternarcotics efforts.

This has prompted U.S. President Donald Trump this month to order increased firepower to combat the problem.

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