Honduras extradites to the US José Luis Oliva Meza, 'The Lord of the Skies', accused of drug trafficking

MADRID, 19 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Honduran authorities have extradited this Thursday José Luis Oliva Meza, known as 'The Lord of the Skies', to the United States to be tried for alleged drug trafficking crimes.

The Drug Control Agency (DEA) has carried out the transfer of the accused, who was handed over at 08:20 a.m. to the United States authorities at the Hernán Acosta Mejía Air Base, located in the capital, Tegucigalpa, according to the newspaper. 'The Herald'.

The agents took Oliva Meza to the air base, where they gave him medical exams and took his fingerprints. Subsequently, thirteen agents guarded him until they reached the aircraft.

A Texas court requested in April 2021 to prosecute Oliva, also a Nicaraguan national with the identity Raduan Omar Zamora Mayorga, for "conspiring to manufacture and distribute five kilograms or more" of a mixture with cocaine "with the intention, knowledge and cause reasonable to believe that such substance would be illegally imported into the United States.

On May 15, the defendant - who had already been arrested in August 2020 for illegally carrying weapons - was arrested in the northern municipality of La Ceiba.

A month later, the trial judge decided to grant the extradition of "The Lord of the Skies" to the Eastern District Court of Texas.

For almost a decade, the Latin American country has extradited more than thirty Hondurans to the United States, most of them between 2016 and 2017, says the aforementioned newspaper.