Mexico has handed over 29 drug cartel figures to the US, together with one of many FBI’s most needed, Rafael Caro Quintero, in what observers say is a “present of compliance” by Mexican authorities. The handover comes simply days earlier than 25 p.c tariffs on Mexican imports by US President Donald Trump are as a consequence of come into impact.
Trump has lengthy taken intention at what he says is Mexico’s failure to regulate drug cartels. He has referred to them as “quasi-government organisations” in some elements of the nation and blames Mexico, specifically, for the movement of extremely addictive fentanyl, an artificial opioid, into the US lately.
A press release from the Mexican lawyer normal’s workplace stated: “This motion is a part of the efforts of coordination, cooperation and bilateral reciprocity, throughout the framework of respect for the sovereignty of each nations.”
Right here is extra about what occurred, and why that is taking place now:
What has Mexico agreed to do?
Mexico on Thursday handed over 29 cartel figures who had been already being held in Mexican prisons. They boarded planes at an airport north of Mexico Metropolis and had been taken to eight US cities, information businesses citing the Mexican authorities stated.
The US confirmed it had taken the 29 prisoners into custody in a press release by Legal professional Basic Pamela Bondi. There are thus far few particulars about the place they’re being held.
The US Division of Justice has launched an inventory of federal courts the place the 29 defendants are to be charged, however it’s unclear when precisely this may occur. All of them face prices that embody racketeering, drug trafficking, homicide, unlawful use of firearms and cash laundering.
Not less than two of the extradited males are to be introduced earlier than a federal courtroom in Brooklyn on Friday, in accordance with an unnamed supply who spoke to the Reuters information company.
That is Mexico’s largest handover of prisoners in years. From 2019 to 2023, Mexico extradited about 65 individuals to the US, Reuters reported.
It’s unclear whether or not any formal extradition course of was adopted after the Mexican authorities known as the operation a “switch”.
Who has been deported from Mexico to the US?
The US Justice Division launched a list of the 29 defendants.
On it had been a number of the strongest cartel leaders concerned within the commerce of cocaine and heroin many years in the past in addition to new “narcos” accused of transferring fentanyl into the US, in accordance with the Justice Division. A narco is somebody concerned within the unlawful commerce of medicine.
A few of those that have been handed over to the US are:
Caro Quintero
Caro Quintero, 72, was the co-founder of the Guadalajara Cartel, which was recognized for transport marijuana to the US, and was convicted of the 1985 homicide of a US Drug Enforcement Administration agent, Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. Guadalajara was one in every of Latin America’s strongest cartels within the Nineteen Eighties, and it did enterprise with Pablo Escobar, the late Colombian drug lord.
After his conviction in 1985 for the kidnapping and homicide of Camarena, he remained in jail till 2013 when a courtroom overturned his 40-year sentence, having concluded he had been tried improperly. He allegedly returned to drug trafficking and remained at massive for plenty of years whereas the US sought to extradite him and provided a $20m reward for his arrest.
Caro Quintero was rearrested in Mexico in 2022 by the Mexican navy. He is likely one of the suspects anticipated to look in a Brooklyn courtroom on Friday.
Trevino brothers
Mexican media has reported that two former leaders of the defunct Los Zetas cartel – brothers Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, additionally known as Z-40, and Omar Trevino Morales, additionally known as Z-42 – have been handed over to the US as properly.
Mexican authorities arrested Miguel, 54, on prices together with organised crime, drug trafficking, torture, cash laundering and the unlawful use of firearms in 2013. Omar, 51, was arrested on prices of cash laundering and violating Mexico’s federal firearms legal guidelines in 2015.
The US has accused the Trevino brothers of working a Zetas splinter faction, the Northeast Cartel, from jail.
Antonio Cervantes and El Guerito
US authorities have recognized the Jalisco New Technology Cartel and Sinaloa Cartel as answerable for bringing fentanyl into the US lately.
The chief of Jalisco, Antonio Oseguera Cervantes, 66, has additionally been handed over to the US. Cervantes is the brother of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, a drug lord also referred to as “El Mencho”. The US has provided a $15m reward for any details about the whereabouts of El Mencho.
Jose Angel “El Guerito” Canobbio, a determine affiliated with the Sinaloa Cartel, was additionally handed over to US authorities on Thursday, Mexican media and Reuters reported.
Why is that this taking place now?
Trump announced 25 percent tariffs on items imported from Mexico and Canada in govt orders he signed on February 1. On Thursday, the president confirmed the tariffs are to take effect on Tuesday.
Trump stated one purpose for the tariffs is a failure by Mexico and Canada to stop avenue medication reminiscent of fentanyl from flowing into the US. “Medicine are nonetheless pouring into our Nation from Mexico and Canada at very excessive and unacceptable ranges,” he wrote in a Fact Social publish on Thursday wherein he confirmed the tariffs can be imposed subsequent week.
Moreover, on January 20, the day he was inaugurated Trump signed an executive order that designates worldwide drug cartels as “terrorist organisations”.
The textual content of the order acknowledged: “In sure parts of Mexico, they operate as quasi-governmental entities.”
This month, the Trump administration additionally designated eight Latin American prison and drug-trafficking teams as “international terrorist organisations”. This was performed in a Federal Register notice and was totally different from the manager order as a result of it named particular teams: Tren de Aragua, Mara Salvatrucha (also referred to as MS-13), Sinaloa Cartel, Jalisco New Technology Cartel, Carteles Unidos, Northeast Cartel, Gulf Cartel and La Nueva Familia Michoacana.
Each Mexico and Canada have stated they’re doing all they’ll to curtail the unlawful medication commerce.
Vanessa Rubio-Marquez, an affiliate fellow of the Americas Programme on the London-based Chatham Home assume tank, stated: “There was ongoing cooperation for many years between Mexican and US authorities that has concerned an trade of knowledge, intelligence and joint operations. What is outstanding is the variety of those that had been extradited.
“One can solely analyse that it is a safety cooperation taking place because of tariff threats.”
Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, stated at a information convention on January 21 that Mexico would cooperate totally with the US to combat drug trafficking however she wouldn’t help the prospect of the US sending troops to implement antidrug-trafficking measures. “What we insist on is the defence of our sovereignty and our independence,” she stated.
