Sheinbaum Pulls Off Historic "Mega Narco Extradition"
The gift to Washington includes heads of the Zetas, Jalisco, Juarez and Guadalajara cartels. It comes at crucial moment in U.S.-Mexico relations.
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With updates listed below.
Ioan Grillo and Juan Alberto Cedillo
The Zetas unleashed a campaign of terror, dissolving hundreds of bodies in metal barrels, burning a packed casino and hurling grenades at families celebrating Mexican independence day. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel shot down a military helicopter, sowed graves with hundreds of corpses and set off dozens of IED’s. The so-called “Guadalajara Cartel” tortured and murdered DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, and U.S. agents had been trying to get their hands on its capo Rafael Caro Quintero since 1985.
This Thursday, Mexico’s attorney general’s office announced it was handing bosses from all these mobs, among a total of 29 top cartel figures, to the United States in an unprecedented mass extradition. The narcos were being flown on Mexican military planes throughout Thursday morning and afternoon to destinations including Washington, Chicago, Houston, New York, Phoenix and San Antonio.
The “mega narco extradition” took place right as a Mexican delegation including its foreign secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente and security czar Omar García Harfuch was in Washington to talk with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. It comes amid President Donald Trump threatening again to impose tariffs on Mexican goods as a punishment for fentanyl trafficking, and the U.S. State Department designating six cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
“This is the highest number of extraditions [in one day] in the history of Mexico, without question. This is historic. It’s a very bold move,” Mike Vigil, former head of the DEA’s international operations, told CrashOut. “These guys unleashed a river of blood…Everybody is elated with the extraditions.”
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who is riding high with an 80 percent approval rating, showed daring and determination to push through such an operation. To secure some of the extraditions, including key figures such the eighties narco boss Caro Quintero and the Zeta leaders, Z-40 and Z-42, prosecutors would have to bulldoze over various injunctions (known in Mexico as “amparos.”)
There were even questions whether some of the figures had begun an extradition process at all. Furthermore, a U.S. statement indicated that some of those flown over, including Caro Quintero, could face the death penalty. Normally, that would been excluded as part of the extradition agreement but that doesn’t appear to be the case. In fact there was a question of whether this could be called an “extradition” at all and officials were using the term of Transfer into U.S. custody.
Juan Manuel Delgado, lawyer for Miguel Ángel Treviño (who the Mexican government says is Z-40), told CrashOut the extradition of his client would trample on the legal process and mean that Mexico had “a total absence of sovereignty,” in the face of U.S. demands.
“National legislation does not allow a [Mexican citizen] to be expelled from the country,” he said. “This would mean a total absence of sovereignty and total absence of the rule of law.”
Video that I received at 20-05 said to show Rafael Caro Quintero arriving in New York
However, it’s hard for the Mexican opposition to condemn extraditions of such brutal capos, even if they are legally questionable. The Zetas were founded by former members of the Mexican special forces and Z-40 was a car thief who joined them and rose to the top. The Zetas are blamed for brutal massacres in Allende, Coahuila, where more than 400 people, from children to grand parents, could have been killed, many with their bodies dissolved in acids.
Silvia Garza, who lost an incredible 17 family members in those massacres told CrashOut the extraditions “were the best news I have had in 14 years.”
“It is God’s justice on earth,” she said. “We all…
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