Mexico has sent 26 prisoners on suspicion of playing a high-profile role in some of the country’s most powerful drug cartels, the second transfer this year.
U.S. officials said individuals extradition included “primary agents” of major drug gangs and were charged with violent crimes or with organized crime links to U.S. courts.
Mexico said that the “permanent risk of public safety” of individual representatives has not been publicly identified.
The latest prisoner transfer is as the White House continues to put pressure on its southern neighbors to deal drug trafficking that violates shared borders, including tariffs on certain products.
Mexican officials said they have agreed that prisoners can be sent to the United States as long as no one is considered eligible for the death penalty, i.e., the government has been insisting on this situation when considering extradition.
The U.S. Embassy in Mexico said members of the country’s two of the most prominent organized crime groups – Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) and Sinaloa Cartel, which included being moved to a U.S. prison.
A prisoner, Roberto Salazar, reportedly allegedly murdered a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy.
Earlier Tuesday, the Mexico Attorney General’s Office said it was a woman accused of delivering drugs to the border in 2016 and 2017. It is not clear whether the woman (known only as Rosa A) was included in the 26 groups later that day.
February, Mexico Send 29 prisoners to link to the U.S. cartelis one of the largest extraditions in the country’s history.
The transferees included Caro Quintero, a founding member of the Guadalajara Cartel, who was accused of murdering Enrique ‘Kiki’Camarena in 1985.
The criminals involved in the latest transfer may not be as famous as February, but U.S. authorities are still considered an important number.
Among them, it was reported that Abigael González Valencia – alias El Cuini, brother of the group leader Nemesio’El Mencho’Oseguera, is said to be Cartel’s top financial boss.
The prisoner transfer is the latest move by the Mexican government to seek to respond to the White House’s demand for stronger action against the cartels.
last week, President Claudia Sheinbaum declined the report U.S. President Donald Trump has authorized U.S. agents to target cartel leaders in Mexico.
“The United States will not come to Mexico with the military,” she said Friday. “We work together, we work together, but there will be no invasion. This is excluded, absolutely excluded.”
However, the latest massive extradition shows that Mexico and the United States continue to cooperate on fentanyl trafficking.
If Trump again threatens to impose tariffs on cross-border smuggling, Sheinbaum is expected to hold the latest extradition to prove her administration is working hard on security issues.
BBC News has contacted the U.S. Department of Justice for comment.
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