Posted on 01/24/2007 2:21:03 PM PST by NormsRevenge
Three of the four drug kingpins who were extradited from Mexico over the weekend will be sent to California to face an array of trafficking charges, officials said Wednesday.
Hector Palma Salazar, the suspected former leader of the Sinaloa cartel, told U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Milloy during a court hearing Wednesday that he agreed to be transferred to San Diego, where he was indicted in 1995 on charges of conspiring to distribute large quantities of cocaine.
On Tuesday, brothers Ismael and Gilberto Higuera Guerrero, former chiefs in the Arellano-Felix cartel in Tijuana, also agreed to be transferred, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bryan Best said. They were originally indicted in San Diego in 2003. They face racketeering, drug trafficking and money laundering charges.
The men, among 15 extradited to Houston from Mexico, are expected to be transferred within 10 days.
Most of them face charges, including drug trafficking, kidnapping and sex crimes, outside Texas and will be transferred to other states. Officials said the Mexican government was willing to extradite the drug lords because they continued to run their drug operations from prison in Mexico, not because of U.S. pressure.
Palma, one of Mexico's most violent drug lords and known as "El Guero" for his fair hair, is suspected of once leading the Sinaloa drug-smuggling organization, which is based in the Mexican Pacific Coast state of Sinaloa. Palma has denied any ties to drug trafficking, saying he works as a rancher.
The Sinaloa cartel formed after the powerful narcotics trafficking organization of Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, the so-called godfather of Mexican drug smuggling, split into two after his arrest in 1989. Felix Gallardo's nephews formed the rival Tijuana cartel.
Palma, was linked to the 1993 slaying of Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo at the Guadalajara airport. The shooting was blamed on the violent rivalry between the cartels.
According to an indictment, Ismael Guerrero was a chief lieutenant in the Arellano-Felix cartel, also known as the Tijuana cartel, and was responsible for its day-to-day operations. Gilberto Guerrero, according to an indictment, utilized kidnapping, torture and murder to enforce the cartel's work.
The fourth extradited Mexican drug kingpin, Osiel Cardenas-Guillen, who was indicted in Brownsville in 2000, will remain in Houston. He is scheduled for a bond hearing Feb. 1. He faces 17 counts for various charges, including drug importing and distribution, threatening a federal agent, and money laundering.
Cardenas-Guillen was responsible from 1999 to March 2003 for moving four to six tons of cocaine per month into the United States, according to U.S. authorities. He is also believed to be one of the kingpins most responsible for violence along the Texas-Mexico border in recent years.
Hey, who wouldn't prefer a California jury than a Mexican hit team.
I'll be curious to see if as drug kingpins and such, they have committed crimes that qualify as the death penalty being warranted and if so, will they be sought and carried out..
Cardenas-Guillen was responsible from 1999 to March 2003 for moving four to six tons of cocaine per month into the United States....... party animals!
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