Mexico sent 10 alleged drug smugglers to the US on Wednesday, capping an already record year for extraditions between the two countries.
Several were high-ranking members of Mexico’s most powerful drug gangs, including the Gulf and Tijuana-based Arellano-Felix cartels, Mexico’s Attorney General’s office said in a news release. The suspects will face charges in California, Texas, Florida and Georgia.
US Ambassador Tony Garza praised the action as another example of President Felipe Calderon’s resolve to go after cartels. Since taking office in 2006, Calderon has made it a priority to extradite drug suspects, who previously would operate from their Mexican jail cells.
“With this decision President Calderon and his national security team underscore again Mexico’s determination to bring cartels operating in its territory to their knees,” Garza said in a statement.
Wednesday’s group brings the number of suspects extradited from Mexico to the US to 95 this year, 12 more than the previous high in 2007, the US embassy said.
Those extradited on Wednesday included Jesus “Chuy” Labra Aviles, the former top financial leader for the Arellano-Felix gang who was arrested in 2000 in Tijuana, and Armando Martinez Duarte, a former federal police official who also worked as the chief of security for the Arellano-Felix gang, protecting its members from police raids, according to the DEA.
John Kirby, a former federal prosecutor in San Diego, said Martinez is also “quite a big fish,” known for torturing and killing traffickers from rival gangs, particularly anyone who tried to venture into the Mexican city of Mexicali, across the border from Calexico, California, Kirby said.
All but one of the suspects are Mexican citizens. Juan Diego Espinosa Ramirez, a Colombian, is wanted in Florida on drug charges related to large cocaine shipments from Colombia to the US.
The alleged Arellano-Felix members face maximum sentences of life in federal prison and minimum sentences between 10 and 20 years, said Laura Duffy, a federal prosecutor in San Diego.
US Justice Department spokesman Ian McCaleb said none of the 10 will face the death penalty.
In one of his first actions as president, Calderon extradited Gulf Cartel leader Osiel Cardenas to Texas as he launched his national campaign against organized crime.
Calderon has sent more than 40,000 troops across Mexico to confront traffickers, who have responded fiercely.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to