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Mexico has extradited dozens of prisoners to the US including a drug trafficker wanted since the 1980s as President Donald Trump prepares to impose tariffs on the country, said a person familiar with the matter.
President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government said it sent 29 wanted criminals to the US on the same day her cabinet was holding high-level security meetings in Washington with secretary of state Marco Rubio to try to ward off a 25 per cent tariff on its goods.
Those extradited include Rafael Caro Quintero, who has been wanted by the US since 1985 when he was accused of the murder of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, said a person familiar with the matter. He is a founder of the Guadalajara Cartel that trafficked marijuana, opioids and other drugs to the US.
Among the group were Miguel and Omar Trevino Morales, known as Z-40 and Z-42, who were leaders of the Zetas cartel based near the US border, Mexican media reported. The group was famous for decapitating and dismembering its enemies. It gained a reputation as one of the most violent groups in Mexico’s history.
Trump has turned up the heat on Mexico to crack down on drug traffickers that have grown more powerful in recent years by killing and bribing politicians, beheading their enemies and threatening citizens.
The US designated six Mexico-based criminal groups as terrorist organisations last week, while some members of Trump’s team have floated US military intervention to take them out.
Trump threatened Mexico and Canada with 25 per cent tariffs on their exports if they did not do more to prevent drugs and migrants crossing their shared borders with the US, with an extended deadline now ending on Tuesday.
Sheinbaum’s move comes as her team tries to convince Trump they are cracking down on the groups while not contradicting or criticising her political mentor and predecessor, the former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and his policy of “hugs not bullets”.
Her administration has increased seizures of drugs such as fentanyl and detentions of higher-ranking targets.
The extraditions are a win for Trump, as some of those sent to the US had been held in Mexico for years with drawn-out legal processes preventing their extradition. Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the DEA, said the numbers were unprecedented.
“Never in the history of Mexico have they signed the extradition of 29 individuals at one time,” he said, adding that Caro Quintero was particularly significant.
“We have been trying to get our hands on him and bring him to justice here in the US,” he said. “This is a celebration for DEA and law enforcement.”
Mexicans cite insecurity as their number one concern in political polling, with the combined rate of homicides and disappearances still near record highs, but the extraction of high-level kingpins can lead to spikes in violence in the short term.
Residents of the northwestern city of Culiacán have been living through an all-out cartel turf war since the kidnapping and illegal extradition of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
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