MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico extradited once-powerful drug lord Benjamin Arellano Felix to the United States on Friday in a renewed sign of U.S.-Mexican cooperation in the drug fight.
Arellano Felix was head of the powerful Tijuana cartel and operated on the Mexico-U.S. border near San Diego until his capture in Mexico in early 2002.
He faces charges in the United States of smuggling tons of cocaine into California in the 1990s.
Serving a sentence in Mexico on organized crime charges, he was due to be extradited in 2008, but a Mexican federal judge blocked that ruling. The injunction was overturned in April last year.
Mexico’s attorney general’s office said in a statement that Arellano Felix was handed over to U.S. agents at an airport outside Mexico City on Friday.
It was not immediately clear what sentence Arellano Felix might face if convicted in the United States, but a U.S. official thanked Mexico for the
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