New York, May 17 (RHC-Prensa Latina)-- The son of former Honduran President Porfirio Lobo pleaded guilty on Monday to conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, a year after his arrest in Haiti as part of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration probe.

Fabio Lobo, 44 years old, faces a mandatory 10-year minimum prison term when he is sentenced on September 15, and could get up to life behind bars following his plea to a single count of conspiring to import cocaine.

At a hearing in federal court in Manhattan, Lobo admitted to participating in a drug trafficking scheme that a federal prosecutor said also involved Honduran police officers. 

Lobo's father was elected president of Honduras in late 2009 after a .S.-backed coup military coup ousted then-President Manuel Zelaya.  U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has been linked to the Honduran military coup.  Porfirio Lobo left office in January 2014, when Juan Orlando Hernandez assumed the presidency.

In court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emil Bove said evidence showed that beginning in late 2013, Lobo began discussing drug trafficking activities with confidential DEA sources posing as drug traffickers.  The goal, he said, was to profit from facilitating drug-running through Honduras.  The notoriously violent Central American country has long served as a major transshipment point for U.S.-bound cocaine smuggled out of South America.