WASHINGTON
AP
—
Mexico has expelled 26 high-ranking cartel figures to the United States in the newest main deal with the Trump administration as American authorities ratchet up stress on prison networks sending medication throughout the border, an individual acquainted with the matter advised The Associated Press on Tuesday.
The cartel leaders and different distinguished figures have been being flown from Mexico to the US on Tuesday, the individual mentioned. They spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to debate the operation that was nonetheless ongoing.
Those being handed over to US custody embrace Abigael González Valencia, a pacesetter of “Los Cuinis,” a gaggle intently aligned with infamous cartel Jalisco New Generation or CJNG. Another individual, Roberto Salazar, is accused of collaborating in the 2008 killing of a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, the individual mentioned.
Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office and Security ministry confirmed the transfers, which have been carried out after a promise from the US Justice Department that prosecutors wouldn’t search the demise penalty in any of the circumstances.
It’s the second time in months Mexico has expelled cartel figures accused of narcotics smuggling, homicide and different crimes amid mounting stress from the Trump administration to curb the move of medicine throughout the border. In February, Mexico handed over to American authorities 29 cartel figures, together with drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was behind the killing of a US DEA agent in 1985.
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Those transfers got here days earlier than 25% tariffs on Mexican imports have been to take impact. Late final month, President Donald Trump spoke with Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum and agreed to place off threatened 30% tariffs for an additional 90 days to permit for negotiations.
Sheinbaum has proven a willingness to cooperate extra on safety than her predecessor, particularly being extra aggressive in pursuit of Mexico’s cartels. But she has drawn a transparent line in the case of Mexico’s sovereignty, rejecting recommendations by Trump and others of intervention by the US army.
The Trump administration made dismantling harmful drug cartels a key precedence, designating CJNG and 7 different Latin American organized crime teams overseas terrorist organizations.
Abigael González Valencia is the brother-in-law of CJNG chief Nemesio Rubén “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, a high goal of the the US authorities. He was arrested in February 2015 in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco and had been preventing extradition to the United States since then.
Alongside his two brothers, he led “Los Cuinis,” which financed the the founding and progress of the CJNG, one of the highly effective and harmful cartels in Mexico. CJNG traffics tons of of tons of cocaine, methamphetamine, and fentanyl into the United States and different nations and is thought for excessive violence, murders, torture, and corruption.
One of his brothers, José González Valencia, was sentenced in Washington’s federal court docket in June to 30 years in a US jail after pleading responsible to worldwide cocaine trafficking. Jose González Valencia was arrested in 2017 underneath the primary Trump administration at a seashore resort in Brazil whereas vacationing with his household underneath a faux identify.