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Mexican
drug
lord 'El
Chapo'
Guzman
is
extradited
to US
By
PETER
ORSI and
BRADLEY
KLAPPER
ap.org
MEXICO
CITY -
Joaquin
"El
Chapo"
Guzman,
Mexico's
most
notorious
cartel
kingpin
who
twice
made
brazen
prison
escapes
and
spent
years on
the run
as the
country's
most
wanted
man, was
extradited
to the
U.S.
Thursday
to face
drug
trafficking
and
other
charges.
Mexico's
Foreign
Relations
Department
announced
Guzman
was
handed
over to
U.S.
authorities
for
transportation
to the
U.S. on
Thursday,
the last
full day
of
President
Barack
Obama's
administration
and a
day
before
Donald
Trump is
to be
inaugurated.
The U.S.
Justice
Department
issued a
statement
confirming
that
Guzman
was en
route to
the
United
States
and
expressed
gratitude
to
Mexico
for its
cooperation.
A senior
U.S.
official
said the
U.S.
Drug
Enforcement
Administration
took
custody
of
Guzman
in
Ciudad
Juarez,
which is
across
the
border
from El
Paso,
Texas,
and a
plane
carrying
him
departed
for New
York at
5:31
p.m.
EST. The
official
was not
authorized
to
discuss
the
matter
publicly
and
agreed
to give
the
information
only if
not
quoted
by name.
The
convicted
boss of
the
Sinaloa
cartel,
one of
the
world's
largest
drug
trafficking
organizations,
had been
held
most
recently
at a
prison
near
Ciudad
Juarez.
He was
recaptured
a year
ago
after
escaping
from a
second
maximum-security
prison
through
a tunnel
dug to
his
cell.
The 2015
escape
was
highly
embarrassing
for the
government
of
President
Enrique
Pena
Nieto,
and
Mexican
officials
were
seen as
eager to
hand the
headache
off to
the
United
States
afterward.
Guzman's
lawyers
have
fought
extradition
since
his
recapture.
"It was
illegal.
They
didn't
even
notify
us,"
said
lawyer
Andres
Granados,
who
accused
the
government
of
extraditing
his
client
to
distract
from
nationwide
gasoline
protests.
"They
handled
it
politically
to
obscure
the
situation
of the
gas
price
hike.
It's
totally
political."
Guzman,
who is
in his
late
50s,
faces
the
possibility
of life
in a
U.S.
prison
under
multiple
indictments
in six
jurisdictions
around
the
United
States,
including
New
York,
San
Diego,
Chicago
and
Miami.
A
federal
indictment
in the
Eastern
District
of New
York,
where
Guzman
is
expected
to be
prosecuted,
accuses
him of
overseeing
a
trafficking
cartel
with
thousands
of
members
and
billions
of
dollars
in
profits
laundered
back to
Mexico.
It says
Guzman
and
other
members
of the
Sinaloa
cartel
employed
hit men
who
carried
out
murders,
kidnappings
and acts
of
torture.
He was
indicted
by a
U.S.
federal
grand
jury in
July
2009. A
superseding
indictment
was
issued
in May
charging
him and
Ismael
"El
Mayo"
Zambada
with a
variety
of drug,
gun and
money
laundering
charges
as part
of an
ongoing
criminal
enterprise.
The
Mexican
Foreign
Relations
Department's
statement
said a
court
had
ruled
against
Guzman's
appeal
and
found
that his
extradition
would be
constitutional.
"The
criminal
Joaquin
Guzman
Loera
was
extradited
this
afternoon
to face
his
pending
legal
cases,"
Mexican
Interior
Secretary
Miguel
Angel
Osorio
Chong
tweeted.
Guzman's
first
prison
break
was in
2001. He
spent
more
than a
decade
at large
before
being
captured
in 2014,
becoming
something
of a
folk
legend
for a
segment
of
Mexico's
population
for his
defiance
of
authorities.
He was
immortalized
in
ballads
known as
"narco-corridos."
The
following
year he
broke
out
through
the
mile-long
tunnel
dug
directly
to the
shower
in his
cell.
It was
while on
the lam
a second
time, in
fall
2015,
that he
held a
secret
meeting
with
actors
Sean
Penn and
Kate del
Castillo.
The
encounter
was the
subject
of a
lengthy
article
Penn
published
in
Rolling
Stone
last
January,
right
after
Mexican
marines
re-arrested
Guzman
in the
western
state of
Sinaloa.
In the
interview,
Guzman
was
unapologetic
about
his
criminal
activities,
saying
he had
turned
to drug
trafficking
at age
15
simply
to
survive.
"The
only way
to have
money to
buy
food, to
survive,
is to
grow
poppy,
marijuana,
and at
that
age, I
began to
grow it,
to
cultivate
it and
to sell
it. That
is what
I can
tell
you," he
was
quoted
as
saying
in
Penn's
article.
Guzman
was
initially
returned
to the
Altiplano
prison
outside
Mexico
City
where he
escaped
through
the
tunnel.
Last
May,
officials
abruptly
moved
him to
the
prison
in the
desert
near
Juarez.
As a
candidate,
Trump
accused
Mexico
of
sending
criminals
and
"rapists"
to the
United
States,
and he
promised
to build
a wall
on the
Mexican
border
and make
Mexico
pay for
it.
Mexican
officials
have
repeatedly
said
they
will not
pay for
a wall.
Derek
Maltz,
who
headed
the
DEA's
Special
Operations
Division
until
his
retirement
in
mid-2014,
said the
timing
of
Guzman's
extradition
less
than 24
hours
ahead of
Trump's
inauguration
could be
seen as
a show
of good
faith by
Mexico.
"It's a
win for
the good
guys,"
he said.
He added
that
Guzman's
extradition
is not
likely
to
immediately
curb the
Sinaloa
cartel's
role in
the drug
trade,
but it's
another
signal
that the
U.S. and
Mexico
are
serious
about
fighting
drug
gangs.
"When
they
start
seeing
the
extraditions
of the
cartel
leadership
and they
see the
unbelievable
effort
in
Mexico
with the
killing
and
capture
of top
cartel
leaders,
they are
going to
start
feeling
the heat
like
they've
never
seen it
before,"
Maltz
said.
The
White
House,
which
was down
to a
skeleton
staff
hours
before
Trump
takes
office,
said it
had no
immediate
comment.
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