Mexico extradites 13 drug cartel suspects to US

Judge Ruben Castillo authorized a federal prosecutor’s office to publicly announce the arrest warrant against El Chapo, who for a second time escaped from a maximum security jail about 11 weeks ago, shaming the Mexican government.

The USA is also turning over a few suspects it has detained back to Mexican authorities. The U.S. had sought his extradition after his arrest in February 2014, but Mexico refused, trying him at home instead.

Luis Umberto Hernandez Celis, Alberto Nunez-Payan and Ricardo Valles de la Rosa, all alleged members of the Barrio Azteca gang who are charged in the fatal shootings of Juarez consulate employee Leslie Ann Enriquez Catton, husband Arthur Redelfs and Jorge Alberto Salcido Ceniceros, were among the group moved from Mexico to face charges in the U.S.

President Enrique Pena Nieto’s decision to try Guzman in Mexico instead of immediately extraditing him to the United States past year has come under scrutiny since the escape.

Mexico has handed over two high ranking cartel suspects to the U.S. in the wake of last July’s embarrassing prison escape by one of the county’s most wanted men. His lawyer told several media outlets in August that Guzman’s escape was spurred by his learning that extradition had become imminent. Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, or the king of drains and tunnels, and his Sinaloa Cartel have been credited with building almost 100 other tunnels on the US-Mexico border, including one he referred to as an “f’n cool tunnel”.

“Today’s extraditions would not have been possible without the close collaboration and productive relationship the Department of Justice enjoys with officials at the highest levels of law enforcement in Mexico”, Lynch said in the statement.