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MEXICO CITY - Mexico has extradited four drug kingpins to the United States, striking a blow to warring cartels that killed 2000 people last year and have turned large areas of the country into lawless badlands.
Osiel Cardenas, who allegedly ran the Gulf cartel, was the most notorious of 11 drug traffickers flown to face trial in the United States on Friday. He was arrested and jailed after a shootout in 2003, but continued to run drugs from prison.
Extradited to face a cocaine distributing indictment in California was Hector "El Guero" Palma, a top associate of Mexico's most wanted man Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who heads the powerful Sinaloa cartel and broke out of a top security prison hidden in a laundry van six years ago.
A total of 15 men were flown to the United States on Friday after their appeals were exhausted.
Mexican officials said some of the men had outstanding sentences in Mexico but would be tried and could serve time in the United States before returning to Mexico.
Drug kingpins held in Mexican prisons often run their cartels from behind bars, making extradition key to cutting their power.
The government also extradited Gilberto and Ismael Higuera, brothers who were lieutenants in the Arellano Felix family drug cartel based in the violent border city of Tijuana.
Others in the group included lower-level traffickers, as well as an indicted murderer and indicted sex offenders.
- REUTERS
