Following Mexico Extradiction, 'La Barbie' Makes First Appearance in US Courtroom Jason Buch - San Antonio Express-News
go to original October 10, 2015

Mexican drug boss Edgar Valdez Villareal (L), known as 'La Barbie', after his capture in Mexico City in August 2010. (EPA)

Accused drug kingpin and Laredo native Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez Villarreal made his first appearance in a U.S. courtroom Friday after being extradited from Mexico last week.

Valdez and his father-in-law, Carlos Montemayor Gonzalez, appeared in an Atlanta courtroom Friday afternoon to face cocaine trafficking charges. Both pleaded not guilty.

The pair were among 13 alleged drug traffickers who Mexico extradited to the U.S. Sept. 30. Among those extradited was Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez, an alleged high-ranking member of the Gulf Cartel who’s charged in Brownsville with drug trafficking and assault on a federal officer. He pleaded not guilty in a hearing last week.

Valdez is believed to be one of the highest ranking U.S. citizens in the leadership structure of Mexico’s drug cartels. An average middle-class kid and linebacker on the football team at United High School in Laredo, he became an operative in Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s Sinaloa Cartel and eventually led his own trafficking organization, prosecutors allege.

He was arrested in Mexico in 2010.

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