Posted on 06/22/2007 5:28:55 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
MEXICO CITY — Mexican police rearrested a former governor Thursday as he was released from prison with the intent of extraditing him to the United States to face cocaine-trafficking charges.
Mario Villanueva, 58, who governed the Yucatan Peninsula state that includes the resorts of Cancun and the Riviera Maya from 1993 until 1999, was arrested at dawn, moments after finishing a six-year sentence here for money laundering.
He faces federal charges in New York of taking part in a conspiracy to smuggle as much as 200 tons of cocaine into the United States while governor of Quintana Roo state. Much of the cocaine was smuggled through South Texas, authorities said.
U.S. officials accuse him of receiving at least $30 million from members of the Juarez Cartel in exchange for providing political and police protection.
The organization was Mexico's most powerful drug trafficking gang in the mid to late 1990s until the death of its boss, Amado Carrillo Fuentes. The cartel underling who allegedly paid Villanueva was sentenced to 47 years in prison in Mexico on Tuesday.
Villanueva's probable extradition comes as President Felipe Calderon's government struggles to bring Mexico's powerful drug gangs to heel.
Despite the deployment of some 24,000 troops and federal police in key drug smuggling states, trafficking and the violence it engenders has continued. By the Mexican media's count, the bloodletting has claimed more than 1,200 lives so far this year.
Anti-crime campaign
Calderon has made extraditions a cornerstone of his anti-crime campaign. Mexico last January sent to the United States 10 leading drug traffickers, including Osiel Cardenas, the reputed boss of the Gulf Cartel based in Matamoros and other cities on the border with Texas. Cardenas faces trial in a Houston federal court this fall.
Officials say information and plea bargains in the United States by extradited defendants speed the dismantling of the drug gangs.
"We feel that one of the strongest tools against drug traffickers is removing them from their traditional areas of control," a senior U.S. drug official said in an interview held under an agreement that he would not be otherwise identified. "When that takes place there is an amazing development of investigation progress."
Running on bribes
Authorities on both sides of the border say the trafficking groups operate under the protection of local, state and federal officials, bought with an estimated $3 billion in annual bribe money.
Officials see breaking up the protection networks as key to bringing the drug gangs under control, but something that is difficult to bring about.
"When you are talking about targeting a political machine, such as a governor's administration, that is something that is going to have to be done with a tremendous effort," the official said.
But, the official said, "if there were an identified group responsible for protecting narcotics traffickers, that case would absolutely be pursued by the Mexican authorities in this administration."
He said U.S. anti-drug agents would assist in any investigation of corruption in Mexico.
Such U.S. cooperation helped to bring Villanueva down. The former governor and one of his sons were accused of laundering money through several New York brokerage and investment firms.
With Mexican investigators closing in on him, Villanueva went into hiding days before his term ended in 1999. He re-surfaced in 2001 and was arrested and jailed by Mexican authorities.
Villanueva's very brief release from custody Thursday came after a Mexican judge dropped other pending charges against him, opening the way for his extradition.
"The government of Mexico reiterates its full commitment with international legal cooperation anchored in mutual responsibility and reciprocity," the Federal Attorney General's Office said in a statement announcing Villanueva's arrest. A judge will decide whether Villanueva will be extradited.
Mexico, which only has permitted extraditions related to drug trafficking in recent years, has usually required the accused criminals to finish serving Mexican sentences before they are sent north.
"Extradition will continue," the U.S. official said. "It has produced a formidable tool between our two countries. It will produce tremendous results."
dudley.althaus@chron.com
Authorities on both sides of the border say the trafficking groups operate under the protection of local, state and federal officials, bought with an estimated $3 billion in annual bribe money."
Follow the money!
Do we really need him here for the rest of his life at $25,000 or more a year?
By sending Mexico's criminals here? Nice touch, though, rearresting him as soon as he left prison.
Maybe we could learn a bit from his example.
“Quintana Roo “
One of the best place names ever.
It’s better than the alternative. He otherwise almost certainly would rejoin the transnational criminal gangs among the illegal alien population that kill, maim, rape, and plunder our people. Controlling the Southwestern border being terminally impolitic, we at least incrementally can reduce the population of active criminals.
If he stayed there he’d get shot.
Hey, just takin' up cell space in Leavenworth Americans won't fill.
One of the best place names ever.
I Agree
Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
Ping!
Agree. we dom’t need him here. He will just organize more prisoners here to run drugs.
>>Authorities on both sides of the border say the trafficking groups operate under the protection of local, state and federal officials, bought with an estimated $3 billion in annual bribe money.<<
The price is way too low. $130 billion is more like it. Our Governors, Senators, Congressmen and state bureaucrats aren’t cheap. They all control the budget and without the men even smart cops can’t catch all the criminals.
I won’t mention anything about how the lack of fencing in key locations guarantees the steady flow of illegal drugs to our addicted idiots.
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