Mexico Accelerates Extraditions of Cartel Bosses to US
Behind Mexico's picturesque beaches, amazing and varied cuisines, and warm, welcoming people lies an underworld known for its ruthless drug cartels that aren't even afraid of openly confronting the military forces and target individuals who endanger their operations.
To combat this, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's administration has accelerated its extradition efforts of suspected drug cartel heads to the United States amidst the pressures of Washington to increase their bilateral cooperation on security, according to an article by The Yucatan Times.
According to figures from the attorney general's office, Mexico's government last year extradited 58 people wanted in the United States.
In 2017, Mexico extradited 57 people to the United States and 69 the following year, official data shows.
As of Feb. 21, Mexico had already sent 30 people across the border in 2020, the figures showed.
The latest among them was Ramon "El Mon" Villarreal, aka "Gabino", a senior figure in the northern Mexico Beltran Leyva Cartel, once allied to the Sinaloa Cartel of kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. Later on, the two gangs became bitter enemies.
During the weekend, El Mon was flown out to be tried Monday in a federal court in Fort Worth, Texas for the murder of Juan Guerrero Chapa in Southlake in May 2013.
Guerrero was the lawyer of former Gulf Cartel boss Osiel Cardenas who is now incarcerated.
According to NBC News, El Mon's brother Rodolfo Villareal Hernandez, known as "El Gato," ordered the murder of Guerrero.
El Gato serves as the reputed regional head of Beltran Leyva Cartel in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon.
According to a heavily-redacted indictment revealed Monday, El Mon faces charges of interstate stalking and conspiracy to commit murder for hire.
El Mon was appointed a federal public defender, George Lancaster.
Court records show that in an initial court appearance in Fort Worth, El Mon pleaded not guilty and waived a detention hearing.
Guerrero was gunned down while he and his wife were shopping. Meanwhile, his wife did not suffer any injury.
In 2016, three other men were convicted of stalking Guerrero using high-tech surveillance equipment which includes a GPS device they secretly placed on his car and remote-controlled cameras they hid near his home in Southlake.
Aside from being Cardenas' lawyer, Guerrero was also a U.S. government informant.
Since the massacre of nine U.S-Mexican women and children in northern Mexico by suspected cartel hitmen last November, U.S. President Donald Trump has pressed Mexico to increase cooperation in the fight against drug cartels.
Early this year, Mexico drafted a judicial reform including measures that would have made prompted lawyers to speed up extraditions of clients to the United States.
However, criticism plagued this draft bill especially from the opposition and civil society groups, which prompted lawmakers to pass a far less radical reform proposal.
Prior to El Mon, Mexico has recently extradited Rubén Oseguera-González, aka "El Menchito."
El Menchito faced charges of possession and use of firearms during his suspected drug trafficking activities in the United States from 2007 to February 2017.
Born in the United States, Oseguera-González is the son of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, aka "El Mencho," leader of the notorious Mexican drug cartel, Jalisco New Generation.
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