Adding to the tempest of anti-corruption cases making their way through Honduras, the United States authorities indicted members of one of the nation’s most elite families Wednesday, charging a former vice president and his son with laundering drug money.

The indictment of Jaime Rolando Rosenthal, a vice president of Honduras in the 1980s and one of its wealthiest men, came as a shock in a country where wealth and political power breed impunity. Also charged was his son, Yani Rosenthal, a former cabinet minister, and his nephew Yankel Rosenthal, a soccer club manager and former minister of investment who was arrested Tuesday evening in Miami. A fourth man, Andrés Acosta García, was also charged.

The Rosenthal family is among the richest in Honduras, with a business enterprise that sprawls across the news media, financial services, telecommunications and real estate interests. The family is accused of laundering money for some of the largest Central American drug syndicates through accounts in the United States, according to the Treasury Department, which also announced sanctions against the three family members.

Some analysts suggested that in charging the Rosenthals, the United States intended to warn the narrow cadre of powerful families who control much of Honduras. The nation is among the most violent in the world and poorest in Latin America. It serves as the transit point for drugs that are smuggled from South America through Mexico to the United States.