In Policy Shift, Mexico Extraditing More Drug Suspects to United States WOAI
go to original November 17, 2015

A wanted poster of 'El Chapo' Guzman, one of the most wanted criminals in Mexico and around the world. (Reuters)

A pair of high-ranking drug traffickers has been shipped from Mexico to the United States where they will stand trial, and experts say this is an about-face for the Mexican government who, for years, has actively fought against extradition.

Under former Mexican presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón, who governed from 2000 to 2012, the government was generous in extradition. During President Fox's administration, some cartel leaders challenged the ability of the Mexican government to extradite, but the Mexican Supreme Court sided with the state.

Dr. Tony Payan at Rice University's Baker Institute says, in 2012, when Enrique Peña Nieto took office, there was an effort to show that Mexico had what it took to deliver justice, but the escape of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman changed that.

"After El Chapo's escape, the reputation was in shambles. It was a failure. It was humiliating."

He says there is now a return to extradition, starting with Cesar Serrano, the alleged former associate of the notorious Sinaloa cartel leader, El Chapo, and Pedro Alejandro Rubio Perez. They were handed over to U.S. authorities at the airport serving the central Mexican city of Toluca, the federal Attorney General's Office said in a statement Sunday.

Read the rest at WOAI

Related: Mexico Extradites 'El Chapo' Collaborator to US (teleSUR)

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