CARACAS/BOGOTA • United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agents have remanded in custody retired Venezuelan general Cliver Alcala, three people familiar with the matter said, after he agreed to work with prosecutors who charged him, President Nicolas Maduro and other top officials with drug trafficking.

Alcala surrendered to DEA agents in Colombia on Friday.

He waived his right to challenge extradition, the three people told Reuters.

He was flown to White Plains, New York, from the port city of Barranquilla, where he had been living.

The White House and a DEA spokesman referred questions to the Department of Justice, which declined to comment.

The State Department did not reply to a request for comment.

The US government last Thursday charged Mr Maduro, Alcala and 13 other current and former Venezuelan officials with "narco-terrorism", the latest escalation of a pressure campaign by President Donald Trump's administration to oust the socialist leader.

Attorney-General William Barr has accused Mr Maduro and his associates of colluding with a dissident faction of the demobilised Colombian guerilla group, the Farc, "to flood the US with cocaine".

But President Maduro, in a state television address, dismissed the charges as false and racist, and called Mr Trump a "miserable person".

The indictment alleged that Alcala and other top officials received bribes from the Farc in exchange for safe passage for cocaine shipments sent through Venezuela.

One of the people familiar with the DEA operation said efforts had been under way to convince other individuals who have been indicted to surrender, but it was too early to say whether that would succeed as, as unlike Alcala, they remained in Venezuela.

REUTERS