Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mexico sent 26 high-ranking cartel figures to the United States Tuesday in the latest major deal with the Trump administration as American authorities ratchet up pressure on criminal networks smuggling drugs across the border. Those handed over to U.S. custody include Abigael González Valencia, a leader of “Los Cuinis,” a group closely aligned with notorious cartel Jalisco New Generation or CJNG. Another defendant, Roberto Salazar, is wanted in connection to the 2008 killing of a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy. Other prominent figures have ties to the Sinaloa Cartel and other violent drug trafficking groups. The transfers...

A man suspected in the 2008 slaying of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Juan Escalante was among 26 fugitives the U.S. has taken into custody from Mexico, the Department of Justice announced. Escalante, 27, was shot and killed that August in front of his mother’s house in Cypress Park, leading to the arrest of multiple suspects and the search for Roberto Salazar, who was charged with murder although he had not been apprehended. In its news release on Tuesday, the DOJ listed Salazar among the fugitives sent to the U.S. from Mexico to face federal and state criminal charges from...