Mexico Starts Extradition of Drug Lord El Chapo Guzman to US

Mexican authorities have started the extradition of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" ("Shorty") Guzman to the United States, local media report.

MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) – On Thursday afternoon, El Chapo was taken to the airport in Ciudad Juarez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua; from there he will be flown to New York, Televisa TV said.

Guzman escaped from the Altiplano maximum security prison on July 11, 2015, using an underground tunnel. Mexican authorities searched for El Chapo for months before finally capturing him in January 2016 and sending him back to Altiplano.

In May 2016, Mexico said it would extradite Guzman to the United States. According to the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), El Chapo will be prosecuted in two different US district courts in Texas and California on charges of organized crime, possession of weapons, money laundering as well as a number of drug offenses.

El Chapo’s most recent escape is not his first one. In 2001, he escaped from a maximum security prison in Mexico’s Jalisco State, using a laundry cart.

Guzman’s Sinaloa drug cartel, named after his home state, smuggles cocaine from Colombia through Mexico to the United States. Sinaloa is responsible for a major portion of cocaine, heroin and marijuana sold in the streets of the United States. The drug empire has allowed Guzman to accumulate a major fortune, which was estimated to be some $1 billion in 2009.

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