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The Narco of Narcos was surrounded by greater than a dozen marines. Rafael Caro Quintero was sporting blue pants, a blue shirt and a beige overcoat when he was captured within the small neighborhood of Choix, within the Sinaloa mountains. The authorities didn’t need to run any dangers: the directions had been to switch him by aircraft immediately from that location close to the Pacific coast to the utmost safety jail of the Altiplano, in central Mexico. Pictures of the operation unfold like wildfire on the afternoon of July 15: Caro Quintero consuming from a bottle of water that he was given through the arrest; Caro Quintero wanting defeated on board an plane, and at last, strolling slowly, escorted and handcuffed, after touchdown in Mexico Metropolis. It was essentially the most high-profile seize of a drug trafficker thus far beneath the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

5 months earlier, the White Home had put down in writing that it needed Mexican authorities to expedite procedures to extradite Caro Quintero, although the drug baron was nonetheless at giant at that time. Washington not solely put extradition on the bilateral negotiating desk but in addition set a date for the request: “To be processed earlier than July 1, 2022.” The Joe Biden administration additionally put a determine on the variety of extradited people that it demanded from the Mexican authorities: “Return common extraditions to the historic common of 60 per 12 months in 2022.” This data was gleaned from a number of working paperwork which might be a part of the Bicentennial Framework for Safety, Public Well being, and Protected Communities, the safety plan that each nations introduced in October 2021 and which incorporates different high-profile drug traffickers, in accordance to hacked emails from Mexico’s Secretariat of Nationwide Protection (Sedena), which EL PAÍS has had entry to.

America want listing included Abigael González Valencia, aka El Cuini, right-hand man and brother-in-law of the founding father of the Jalisco New Technology Cartel (CJNG), Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, El Mencho. The US additionally requested the extradition of the brothers Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, generally known as Z-40, and Omar Treviño Morales, generally known as Z-42, founders of Los Zetas, thought-about some of the bloodthirsty legal teams in Mexico and considered liable for the homicide of 72 migrants in San Fernando, Tamaulipas. One other one of many targets is recognized solely as “Villarreal” and will presumably be José Rodolfo Villarreal Hernández, El Gato, boss of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel and included within the listing of the FBI’s 10 Most Needed Fugitives in 2020. Caro Quintero’s identify additionally appeared on that listing.

“The governments of the USA and Mexico frequently collaborate on extradition requests. The US authorities is happy to extend our shared safety cooperation beneath the Bicentennial Framework,” stated a spokesperson for the US Embassy in Mexico who declined to remark additional. A spokesman for the Mexican International Ministry stated that bilaterally there’s a new give attention to strategic extraditions for every nation: for the US, the precedence is on the leaders of drug trafficking, with particular emphasis on fentanyl; for Mexico it’s the people linked to arms trafficking and diverting public funds. The official, who requested to maintain his identify confidential, stated that from 2023 the request for extraditions to Mexico for these crimes will likely be accelerated. This newspaper additionally reached out to Sedena for remark, however didn’t obtain a response.

All of the drug lords needed by the US are being held in Mexican prisons, aside from El Gato Villarreal, who remains to be at giant. In virtually all instances, Mexican and US authorities have tried to extradite them, thus far with out success. The trials have been slowed down by injunctions filed by the authorized protection of the drug traffickers.

In keeping with US court docket paperwork obtained by this newspaper, Caro Quintero is needed in California for the homicide of DEA agent Enrique Kiki Camarena within the Eighties. The drug lord has three different open instances in Texas, Arizona and New York for drug trafficking. Though an extradition trial was initiated after his seize, the method is slowed down as appeals and different authorized sources utilized by his legal professionals get resolved. Thus far no particular date has been introduced for his extradition to the US.

El Cuini was accused by the US in November 2013 of appearing in collusion with El Mencho to import and distribute cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana in that nation, in addition to in Colombia, Guatemala, Ecuador and Mexico, between 2000 and 2014. They had been accused of committing murders, kidnappings, acts of torture and of bribing authorities. Abigael González Valencia is recognized within the swimsuit because the chief of Los Cuinis, a legal group allied with the CJNG. He was captured in February 2015 and since then he has been imprisoned, first within the Altiplano penitentiary, within the State of Mexico, after which in Oriente jail, within the nation’s capital. El Cuini is the brother of Rosalinda González Valencia, spouse of El Mencho and who was additionally arrested in November of final 12 months.

After the seize of El Cuini, the Mexican authorities issued two agreements favorable to his extradition, one in 2016 and the opposite in 2019. Ultimately, each makes an attempt had been reversed by selections of federal judges. The penetration of the CJNG within the US has triggered safety alerts in that nation. In keeping with a 2019 report from the DEA, the US anti-drug company, the Mencho legal group has a presence in 26 cities, in a transparent territorial dispute with the Sinaloa Cartel, which is current in 49. The report supplies an account of different Mexican legal organizations with much less penetration in US territory, such because the Gulf Cartel, Los Beltrán Leyva, Los Rojos, Los Zetas (or Cartel del Noreste), Guerreros Unidos, Cartel de Juárez (or La Línea) and La Familia Michoacana.

The scenario of the Treviño Morales brothers is much like that of El Cuini: after being arrested, each have managed to dam their extraditions. The primary to fall was Miguel Ángel, Z-40, then chief of Los Zetas, in a Navy operation carried out in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, in 2013. After his seize, his brother Oscar Omar, Z-42 , assumed the management of the legal group. Two years later, he too was arrested, this time by the Military. The primary is being held in a federal jail in Chiapas and the second in a single in Sonora.

Each drug lords had been accused by the US in 2012 of conspiracy to launder cash from the unlawful sale of medicine in that nation, primarily cocaine and marijuana, in keeping with court docket paperwork consulted by this newspaper. The indictment, which entails 13 different folks, states that the medicine had been first launched into Mexico from Colombia and Venezuela by means of ships, planes and automobiles, after which moved to Texas.

From there, the Treviño Morales brothers laundered property within the US by shopping for quarter horses and betting on horse races – a authorized exercise – with the help of kinfolk who lived in that nation. “Proceeds from the unlawful sale of narcotics in the USA can be transported to Mexico by means of shipments of money. These shipments can be delivered to [Los Zetas] bosses for additional distribution to be able to proceed the unlawful distribution of medicine and to launder proceeds by means of varied actions,” the lawsuit says. The authorized defenses of each Z-40 and Z-42 have filed injunctions towards their extradition to the USA.

José Rodolfo Villarreal Hernández, El Gato, one other US extradition goal, is needed by the FBI for having ordered the homicide of the lawyer of Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, founding father of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel. The native boss of this legal group in Monterrey and San Pedro Garza García, in Nuevo León, El Gato allegedly employed hitmen to hold out the homicide, which occurred in Could 2013 exterior a shopping center in Southlake, Texas, in full daylight. In October 2020, his identify was included on the listing of the FBI’s most needed fugitives, together with that of one other capo additionally accused of homicide: Caro Quintero.

An change of emails between the US authorities and officers from the Secretariat of International Affairs (SRE) and Sedena sheds gentle on how the precedence actions for each governments had been outlined as a part of the Bicentennial Framework, the bilateral collaboration scheme that changed to the Merida Initiative. The actions are grouped into three common themes that had been made public from the start: “Shield our folks”, “Stop cross-border crimes” and “Pursue legal networks.” The Sedena leak, nevertheless, brings to gentle what the precise indicators are to measure progress on every objective.

The case of extraditions is grouped within the persecution of legal teams as an indicator and it’s all the time seen in a single course: “Enhance the variety of extraditions of needed fugitives from Mexico to the USA.” The SRE spokesman didn’t touch upon this assertion, however urged that extra extraditions from the US to Mexico will start to happen beginning in 2023.

The paperwork beneath overview present that Washington additionally demanded a rise within the variety of court docket instances filed towards drug traffickers and within the variety of convictions. Within the public model of those motion plans, the tone adjustments: there isn’t any discuss of attaining convictions or reaching a quota of extraditions, however of “rising cooperation in extradition issues.” The extraditions are the final level talked about within the official communications.

In 2021 there have been 43 extraditions from Mexico to the USA, the bottom quantity within the final 15 years, in keeping with a report by the US Congress printed this 12 months. Information from the Division of Justice present how extraditions skyrocketed throughout the federal government of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) to a mean of 98 extraditions per 12 months, virtually triple the 35 averaged by the administration of Vicente Fox (2000-2006) , originally of the so-called battle towards medicine. Beneath Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), the typical fell to 65 extraditions per 12 months. López Obrador’s six-year time period started with the identical inertia: there have been 58 in 2019 and 60 in 2020, earlier than collapsing final 12 months, in keeping with official statistics.

The emphasis on extraditions that had been made in personal helps to know the statements that had been made in public. Barely every week after the seize of Caro Quintero, US Legal professional Normal Merrick Garland held a name with Marcelo Ebrard, the Mexican overseas minister, to finalize his extradition. “Each leaders reaffirmed their dedication to work expeditiously on the extradition of Caro Quintero,” reads the official assertion.

US Ambassador Ken Salazar has additionally insisted. Throughout a go to to Colima, one of many scorching spots of violence in Mexico, Salazar met with Governor Indira Vizcaíno to debate the safety disaster and publicly referred to as for elevated extraditions of defendants and criminals. “We would like them in the USA, ship them to us as quickly as potential,” the ambassador stated on August 9, just some hours earlier than the CJNG imposed chaos with a number of drug blockades in Jalisco, whereas the authorities tried to seize a regional chief. “That may be a very efficient strategy to have an effect on this crime,” added Salazar.

On August 17, the US Embassy spoke once more in regards to the significance of grounding the Bicentennial Understanding in concrete actions. “Inside this framework, each nations dedicated to enhancing safety and higher defending our folks. With out safety there isn’t any prosperity” and “It’s time for outcomes” had been a few of Salazar’s slogans. On August 23, the US ambassador modified his tone and thanked the Mexican authorities for the extradition of Carlos Arturo Quintana, El Ochenta, chief of the Juárez Cartel.

Simply final week, Ebrard traveled to Washington for a high-level bilateral dialogue on safety, alongside his US counterpart Antony Blinken and different key officers within the Biden administration. “We are going to proceed to work intently with our companions in Mexico to analyze, arrest, extradite and prosecute members of harmful legal organizations,” stated District Legal professional Garland. Rosa Icela Rodríguez, Secretary of Safety and a part of the Mexican delegation, highlighted that in the federal government of López Obrador “the best variety of arrests in historical past” has been achieved: greater than 65,000 alleged criminals, virtually 6,000 from organized crime teams.