Police are hunting gunmen who shot dead three models in Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, after forcing them from their car and making them lie in the road. Alma Mariela Vargas, 28, from San Marcos de Colón, Madelyn Ramirez Zambrano, 21, and Blanca Velasquez Alejandra Mejia, 20, both from San Pedro Sula, were being driven in a Toyota SUV in the Valle de Angeles area of the city when they were attacked. Their car was apparently intercepted by gunmen in a car and a motorcycle on Sunday morning. Forensic staffers and policemen stand at the site where three models were shot dead in the Valle de Angeles municipality in Tegucigalpa . Models Madelyn Ramirez Zambrano (left) and Blanca Velasquez Alejandra Mejia (right) were both killed by gunmen in Honduras . Alma Mariela Vargas was killed in a cold-blooded execution with two other models on Sunday morning . They were forced out and executed in cold blood, police said. A man and another woman in their party were injured in the shootout and taken to Escuela Hospital for treatment. Police found 15 bullet casings at the scene, according to Laprensa.hn. An official said that one of the gunmen asked for one of the models by name before the murders took place. She was shot first before the other two were killed, he said. The tragedy followed the arrest in Honduras of Jose Miguel "Chepe" Handal, the alleged leader of a drug trafficking organization that coordinated the shipment of tons of Colombian cocaine via Mexican cartels to the United States. Handal, a prominent Honduran businessman, was taken into custody without a struggle in the northwestern city of San Pedro Sula on Thursday near a hospital where his father was receiving treatment, President Juan Orlando Hernandez said in a television interview. Police found 15 bullet casings at the scene, according to a Honduran newspaper report . Hernandez said Honduran judges would likely be in charge of the case because there has not yet been an extradition request from the United States. Since 2013, the U.S. government has identified Handal as a drug trafficking kingpin who supplied Colombian cocaine to Mexico's Sinaloa and rival Los Zetas cartels using clandestine airstrips as well as land-based routes into Guatemala, where the Mexican gangs have a presence. Handal's father and his wife were also designated as leaders of the organization by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control. "After several months of searching, today Chepe Handal has been detained and will now be judged," Hernandez said in a post on his Twitter page. Drug-related violence in Honduras has increased in recent years since Mexico's drug cartels expanded there, enlisting Honduran gangs and using its Caribbean coast to transport South American cocaine to consumers in the United States.
Police are hunting gunmen who shot dead three models in Tegucigalpa . Their car was apparently intercepted by gunmen in a car and a motorcycle . Police found 15 bullet casings at the scene, according to a Honduran paper .