FBI agents arrive in Peru for the transfer of Joran Van der Sloot, a suspect in the Natalee Holloway case

() — A team of FBI special agents landed in Peru on Wednesday as part of the procedures for the temporary transfer of Joran Van der Sloot, a suspect in the Natalee Holloway case, a police source familiar with the operation told .

Federal agents left Birmingham, Alabama, for Lima, Peru, early Wednesday aboard a Gulfstream 550 business jet, which the FBI uses for overseas custody transfer missions, the source said. Barring last-minute legal proceedings, Van der Sloot is expected to be transferred to US custody on Thursday and return to Alabama with the task force, according to one of the sources.

Van der Sloot is the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway, an Alabama teenager.

The transfer would occur after several legal battles over temporary transfer of Van der Sloot, who is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence in Peru for the 2012 murder of 21-year-old Stephany Flores in her Lima hotel room. He is currently being held in the Ancón 1 prison, in Peru.

A Van der Sloot lawyer argued on Monday that his transfer to the United States should be suspended, but the Lima Superior Court of Justice ordered that he be handed over to FBI agents on Thursday, previously reported.

In the United States, Van der Sloot is charged with federal racketeering and wire fraud charges for allegedly extorting money from Holloway’s mother in 2010 in exchange for false information about her daughter’s disappearance.

Initially, Peru had agreed to extradite Van der Sloot to face US justice only after he completed his sentence for murder. However, last month the country reversed course and agreed to temporarily transfer him to the US to answer charges of extortion and wire fraud, after which he would be returned to Peru, the judiciary said.

Peru agreed to the “temporary relocation of Van der Sloot to the United States, because he is sentenced here and must serve his sentence here,” Justice Minister Daniel Maurate said. “But the US needs him to stand trial, and the authorities told us that if he didn’t get there sooner the case against him could fall because the witnesses are elderly.”

Dutch citizen Joran Van der Sloot is photographed during a hearing at the Lurigancho prison in Lima on January 13, 2012. (Photo: STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Holloway was last seen with Van der Sloot and two other men 18 years ago, leaving a nightclub in Aruba.

Aruba police arrested and released the three men — van der Sloot and the brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe — multiple times in 2005 and 2007 in connection with Holloway’s disappearance. Lawyers for the men maintained their innocence throughout the investigation.

In December 2007, the Aruba Public Prosecutor’s Office said that none of the three would be charged and dropped the cases against them, citing insufficient evidence.

Holloway’s body has not been found. An Alabama judge signed an order in 2012 declaring her legally dead. There is currently no one formally charged in her death.