Major Cocaine Smuggler Receives Life Sentence
A man described as an early cocaine trafficker and one of the most important drug smugglers ever locked up in the United States was sentenced to a life prison term Monday--for the second time.
Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros, 46, of Honduras also was sentenced to 150 years in prison, to be served concurrently with the life sentence, and was fined $350,000 by U.S. District Judge William J. Rea in Los Angeles.
Matta was convicted in January of organizing a ring that transported thousands of pounds of cocaine into the United States via tiny airstrips in the southwest part of the country in 1983 and 1984.
He was sentenced to life in prison without parole last year for a 1981 drug conspiracy in which cocaine was imported through Florida.
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