Fabio Lobo, the son of former Honduran President, Porfirio Lobo has been sentenced to 24 years in prison on Tuesday after pleading guilty to a United States charge of conspiring to import cocaine into the country.

The 46-year-old Lobo was sentenced by US District Judge, Lorna Schofield in the Manhattan Federal Court having pleaded guilty in May 2016, about a year after he was arrested in a trap operation in Haiti.

According to the case files, Lobo had agreed to help two Mexican drug traffickers who were actually undercover agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), transport several tons of cocaine into the United States through Honduras.

He was captured when he went to receive his payment which corresponded with the profits made from the arrangement, having carried out his own side of the transaction by sucessfully transporting the drugs.

Lobo’s father was elected President of Honduras in late 2009 after the then President, Manuel Zelaya was ousted from office following a military coup but he vacated office in January 2014 when current President Juan Orlando Hernandez took over.

Before being sentenced, a remorseful Lobo tearfully apologised to the United States, his parents, his wife, three daughters and other family members, some of whom were present in the court room.