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January 23,2007 More drug violence expected after 15 extradited to U.S. By Andres R. Martinez Monitor Staff Writer McALLEN — The Mexican government anticipates violence to spike as drug lords fight for control of trafficking routes around the country, after 15 fugitives were extradited to the United States last week, U.S. Justice Department officials said on Monday. "These extraditions will no doubt produce extra violence," said Karen Tandy, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. "Mexico anticipates violence and is prepared to meet that violence." Two of the 15 fugitives are siblings who were indicted in McAllen’s U.S. District Court in connection with drug trafficking in 2003. They had not been transported to McAllen as of Monday. Tandy made her statements during a rare press conference called three days after Mexico flew 15 fugitives wanted in the United States to an air field outside Houston. The move, which came with only hours notice to U.S. officials, is part of Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s anti-drug initiatives, which included disarming the corrupt Tijuana police and military operations in the state of Michoacan and Guerrero, where rival drug gangs have killed hundreds, if not thousands, of people. The U.S. government received 11 defendants tied to drug trafficking, who ranged from the leader of the Gulf Cartel to top lieutenants from all of the major border cartels. The leaders’ removal from Mexican prisons is expected to disrupt their ability to run the cartels in that country. "This amounts to a clean sweep geographically of the cartels’ leadership," Tandy said. The other four defendants were wanted for murder, sex trafficking and sexual abuse of a minor. The 15 fugitives were sent on three planes to Ellington Field in Harris County beginning at 7:30 p.m. Friday and ending a little after midnight. The field is a former Air Force Base and currently home to Coast Guard, Texas Army National and Air Guard and NASA operations. Osiel Cardenas-Guillen was the most notorious of the 15 who arrived. He is accused of ordering the shipment of more than four tons of cocaine into the United States each month from 1999 until 2003 and of the attempted murder of FBI and DEA agents, and is believed to have started the Zetas, the enforcement arm of the Gulf Cartel. The Zetas are believed to be behind many of the assassinations of police officers and rival drug members in the last few years. Cardenas-Guillen became the head of the Matamoros-based Gulf Cartel after Juan Garcia Abrego was arrested and extradited to the United States in the early 1990s. Police in Mexico arrested Cardenas-Guillen in 2003. He has been running the cartel out of his prison cell in Mexico since then. The other prisoners are top lieutenants and second-tier lieutenants in the Federation, Tijuana and Juarez cartels. These cartels have been fighting to wrest control of drug gateways into the United States. They are scheduled to stand trial on federal charges in New York, Colorado, California and Texas. "This is a watershed event," said John Walters, head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. "Some of these people have been a threat to Mexico and innocent people through the hemisphere for several years." The suddenness with which the 15 were extradited represents a dramatic shift in how Mexico deals with suspects in its custody who are wanted in the United States, said Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty. "We saw for the first time that Mexico was extraditing to us defendants who led or held significant positions in international drug cartels," he said. The change began with former Mexican President Vicente Fox and has dramatically picked up speed since Calderon took office in December. So far this year, Mexico has extradited at least 16 people to the United States. If the Mexican government continues with that pace they will soon eclipse the 63 fugitives they extradited to the United States last year and the 41 the year before. Before that, a series of decisions by Mexico’s Supreme Court and Mexico’s unwillingness to allow its citizens to face the death penalty in the United States had slowed extradition proceedings. The two countries signed an extradition treaty in 1978, but until an amendment took effect in 2001, Mexico did little to honor the agreement, says Douglass McNabb, senior principal at McNabb Associates and an international extradition expert. "There were years when the Mexican government would not agree to extraditing anyone to the United States," McNabb said. "It would be fair to say if Mexico continues to extradite at the rate they are, that no longer can someone commit a heinous act in the United States and run off to Mexico without being punished." | |