Former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel has been handed over to US authorities

“El Chapo” Guzmán, one of Mexico’s most famous drug lords, is on his way to face criminal charges in the United States, the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs has announced.

Joaquín Guzmán, former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, was removed from his cell at a federal prison in Ciudad Juárez this afternoon in preparation for extradition to the U.S.

A statement released by the Foreign Affairs Secretariat said a court decided today to reject a request for an amparo, or legal protection, against extradition.

“. . . today, the government of the republic handed over Mr. Guzmán to the authorities of the Unites States of America,” the statement said.

The newspaper Milenio reported that the former cartel boss had been transferred from Cefereso No. 9 in Juárez to that city’s international airport to be flown to the U.S.

CNN reported that it had been told by a U.S. official that Mexican authorities had planned to hand Guzmán over before tomorrow’s inauguration of president-elect Donald Trump.

Government officials said last fall they expected the hand-over to take place early this year. January marks the first anniversary of Guzman’s capture in Sinaloa, six months after a spectacular escape through a 1.5-kilometer tunnel from the Altiplano federal prison in the State of México.

He had been in custody since February 14 when he was arrested in Mazatlán.

In the U.S. he will face charges of money laundering, drug trafficking, kidnapping and murder.

Stories from our archives that you might enjoy </s> MEXICO CITY — State police have detained and disarmed the entire police force of a town in western Mexico where a mayoral candidate was killed on Thursday.

Video of the detention aired by local media showed uniformed officers hitting each other as gunshots go off in the background.

The Michoacán state police force said “all the officers of the Ocampo municipal police force were detained for [an] internal affairs investigation.”

In statements on its Twitter account Sunday, the state police department did not directly tie the detentions to the Thursday killing of Fernando Angeles Juarez, the mayoral candidate for the leftist Democratic Revolution Party. He was killed in Ocampo, Michoacán on Thursday.

Mexican soldiers guard the funeral of Ocampo municipality Mayor and candidate for the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), Fernando Angeles, in Ocampo, Michoacan State, Mexico, on June 21, 2018.Raul Tinoco / AFP – Getty Images

Angeles Juárez’s is just one of at least 18 candidates killed so far in campaigns leading up to the July 1 elections. Just last week, another mayoral candidate was also gunned down last week in the conflict-ridden rural town of Aguililla in the western state of Michoacan.

Michoacán Gov. Silvano Aureoles vowed to catch those responsible for killing candidate Omar Gómez Lucatero.

Almost all of the 18 candidates killed across the country so far have been running for local posts in the July 1 elections, which will also decide the presidency, governorships and Congress. Other politicians who were considering a run have been killed before they could even register as candidates. The killings have particularly hit states like Michoacán, Guerrero and Oaxaca.

Ocampo, all 28 police officers, were detained after participating in a revolt when they prevented the arrest of the director of Public Security who will be investigated for his probable responsibility in the killing of the candidate Fernando Angeles Juarez.Ivan Villanueva / EPA

Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope said that in part, the level of violence against candidates can be explained by “simple mathematics:” There are far more elections being held simultaneously than ever before in Mexico. With more than 3,400 local, state and federal posts at stake, there are more than 15,000 candidates hitting the campaign trail.

“Secondly, this speaks to the changes in criminal groups,” Hope said, noting that drug cartels have expanded into extortion, fuel theft and other crimes. “With the evolution of crime, it becomes much more important to gain control over territory, over local governments.”

In crimes like fuel theft, for example, local police can be valuable allies to act as look outs or cover up for illegal pipeline taps and illicit fuel warehouses. And some gangs have even taken to extorting money from local governments by forcing them to sign inflated public works contracts.

Those concerns could lead the gangs to kill a candidate who rivals their favorite, or to kill candidates who refuse their demands.

Finally, Hope noted, “there has been a breakdown in the management of disputes,” largely in rural areas, where turf wars between rival gangs have heated up, even as the government has become over-extended and less able to intervene. </s> TOLUCA, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexico's ruling party fended off a leftist challenger in a major state election seen as a test run for a presidential vote next year, propelling the country's peso currency to its strongest level since U.S. President Donald Trump was elected.

But the Institutional Revolutionary Party's (PRI) 3 percentage-point margin of victory in the central State of Mexico, the country's most populous, was a close call for President Enrique Pena Nieto, whose party has ruled it for nearly nine decades.

A narrow defeat will not end, or even dampen, the aspirations of leftists led by veteran Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, an early favorite for next year's presidential race as the contender of the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) party. His young party accused the PRI of vote buying and other dirty tricks, and may launch legal challenges in the weeks to come.

With nearly 98 percent of returns in from polling booths, PRI candidate Alfredo del Mazo had 34 percent of the vote compared with 31 percent for MORENA candidate Delfina Gomez.

"We are going to challenge (the results) at many booths where illegal returns were sent, and we believe that with this we could reverse the outcome," said MORENA secretary general Yeidckol Polevnsky.

In other statewide elections, also held on Sunday, the PRI lost in the western state of Nayarit and narrowly won in Coahuila, which borders the United States.

"The PRI struggled to hold on to the gubernatorial seat in both the State of Mexico and Coahuila, which have traditionally been very favorable electoral battlegrounds, and suffered significant losses in Nayarit and in the municipal election in Veracruz," said Goldman Sachs economist Alberto Ramos.

"This does not bode well for the PRI in the presidential election next year," Ramos added.

Still, markets reacted positively to the news that the PRI was bound to retain power in Mexico State.

The Mexican peso MXN=MXN=D2 gained nearly 2 percent in Monday morning trade, on the setback for Lopez Obrador, a sign of ongoing market distrust of the combative leader who has opposed economic liberalization in Mexico.

The result also gave a boost to OHL Mexico (OHLMEX.MX), the Mexican unit of Spanish construction firm OHL, whose share price rose by as much as 9.5 percent.

Investors fear that Lopez Obrador and other opposition leaders, who have accused OHL Mexico of helping to finance the PRI in the State of Mexico, could go after the firm's lucrative contracts if they are elected to power. OHL Mexico has rejected the allegations.

The PRI is battling widespread anger at corruption and rising violent crime under Pena Nieto as the countdown starts for the July 2018 presidential election.

Lopez Obrador has alleged fraud in past elections, and he vowed to scrutinize the results from every voting booth.

"We will never resort to violence, but we are going to firmly defend this country's democracy," he said in a video message. Gomez, the candidate, said she would not protest the result on the streets.

Known as AMLO, the silver-haired politician earned the ire of many Mexico City residents after the 2006 presidential vote when he brought parts of the capital to a standstill with mass protests, saying he had been robbed of victory by center-right candidate Felipe Calderon.

"The lengths that Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador goes to challenge the result will have an important bearing on his presidential candidacy," said Nicholas Watson of Teneo Intelligence.

Prosecutors are probing the circumstances of piles of pig heads dumped on Saturday near MORENA offices and at polling stations in several municipalities.

Also under investigation were telephone threats and fake electoral literature warning of attacks - tactics used to dissuade people from voting.

Encompassing many populous neighborhoods on the edge of Mexico City, the State of Mexico is home to one in eight Mexican voters and it has long been a source of strength and financing for the PRI.

Del Mazo, however, had a poor showing compared to his predecessors despite his family's dominance in the state's politics. He secured barely half the share of vote and a fraction of the margin of victory that the current governor won six years ago with the backing of Pena Nieto, himself a former governor of the state whose own popularity has since plunged.

Failing to put a stop to corruption scandals and struggling to tame brutal gang violence has cost the party dearly.

Mexico's attorney general's office said on Sunday a former state governor for the PRI, Roberto Borge, had been arrested at Mexico's request in Panama on corruption charges. Borge, an ex-governor of Quintana Roo, encompassing the resort of Cancun, has previously denied wrongdoing.

Lopez Obrador's State of Mexico campaign was hurt by a failure to ally with others in the opposition and references by rivals to crisis-hit Venezuela, which the PRI argues mirrors his economic model. He denies the accusation.

The campaigner has opposed the opening of Mexico's energy sector to private capital, a key reform under Pena Nieto, but no longer vows to reverse it.

Linking Lopez Obrador to late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has helped rivals beat him to the top job in two previous bids at the presidency.

Victory for Lopez Obrador in 2018 could push Mexico in a more nationalist direction at a time of tension with the United States, with U.S. President Donald Trump riling Mexicans with threats to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement and build a border wall. </s> Sinaloa cartel chief Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman arrives in New York after his extradition from Mexico, January 19, 2017. Thomson Reuters

CHICAGO (AP) — Top US Drug Enforcement Administration officials will unveil new plans to combat Mexican drug cartels Wednesday in Chicago alongside members of the Mexican government and federal police, DEA officials told The Associated Press.

The announcement at a joint news conference will be a public display of bilateral cooperation amid ongoing tensions over President Donald Trump's trade and immigration policies, including over his vow to build a wall along the nearly 2,000-mile US-Mexican border.

The new plans include putting greater emphasis on attacking cartels' financial infrastructure. Plans also call for a new enforcement group based in Chicago that will concentrate on international investigations of cartels.

Matthew G. Donahue, director for the DEA's North and Central American Region, told the AP on Tuesday that the US wants to rely more on changes in the Mexican legal system in recent years designed to make evidence gathering and prosecutions more efficient.

Municipal police stand guard on the beach in front of the Blue Parrot club, a day after a deadly early-morning shooting there, in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, January 17, 2017. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

"The new game plan is ... pick up the speed and arrest more people, faster," Donahue said. "That's what we're really trying to push — the cooperation that we currently have with Mexico to be a little more efficient, a little bit more aggressive."

He said the U.S. also intends to do more to help stem the flow of guns into Mexico that contributes to deadly violence in the country. Donahue said around 31,000 people were killed in Mexico last year, a new record for a single year.

The DEA didn't immediately name the Mexican officials who will attend the event in Chicago.

Donahue said the targeting of top cartel brass will remain a core component of bids to disrupt the powerful syndicates. The biggest trophy in this long-standing kingpin strategy was Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, extradited to New York in 2017 to face US trafficking charges.

Sinaloa has dominated the drug supply to many US cities, though the takedown of Guzman lessened its influence. Among up-and-coming cartels cutting into Sinaloa drug-market share is the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG, led by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as "El Mencho."

Police officers, members of a team known as "Condores," stand by the door of the helicopter during a patrol of the city, part of a new strategy to combat the crime in Mexico City, August 3, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

Last year, a DEA drug-threat report called CJNG "one of the most powerful and fastest growing in Mexico and the United States." It said the cartel's primary product is methamphetamine, with main US distribution hubs in Los Angeles, New York, and Atlanta.

A 2018 report by the University of San Diego's Justice in Mexico said Guzman's takedown "dramatically reshaped the landscape of Mexican organized crime," including by clearing the way for Cervantes and the CJNG to expand.

The same report urged policymakers not to rely as much on a strategy of going after kingpins and extraditing them to the US, saying it often had a "hydra-effect," in which a new series of drug lords emerge and without reducing the overall menace of cartels.

Donahue defended the strategy to date, saying the US and Mexico will "always go after the top dog" in a cartel and "always go after the entire organization." </s> OCAMPO, Mexico — The entire police force of a Mexican town in the state of Michoacán is being questioned in the assassination of a mayoral candidate, the office of the state’s attorney general told CNN on Monday.

Fernando Angeles Juarez of the Party of the Democratic Revolution was killed Thursday morning by unknown gunmen.

On Saturday, Michoacán State Police went to Ocampo to question 28 municipal officers in a routine check unrelated to Juárez’s death, the law enforcement agency said on Sunday. When they arrived, some of those officers fired shots in the air and resisted their authority, Michoacán State Police said. The agency said all 28 officers were detained on Sunday.

On Monday, the Michoacán State Attorney General’s Office confirmed that the officers are now under investigation in Juárez’s death.

Mexico is due to go to the polls on July 1 to pick its next president as well as hundreds of federal, state and municipal positions.

Juarez was one of two aspiring politicians killed in the western state of Michoacán in less than 24 hours. Omar Gomez Lucatero, an independent candidate for mayor of Agulilla, was shot dead on Wednesday afternoon.

The Mexico Attorney General’s Office said it is leading the investigations into the two candidates’ deaths. </s> MEXICO CITY — Claudia Sheinbaum was sworn into office Wednesday as the first elected female mayor of Mexico City and immediately announced she would dissolve the riot police.

“The police are there to protect the people, and we don’t need a police force to repress them,” said Sheinbaum.

Sheinbaum pledged to build cable cars to impoverished slums, and improve bus and subway service.

She also said replacement housing would be built for people who lost their homes and apartments in the 2017 earthquakes.

The previous administration had offered loans for rebuilding, but residents wanted the government to pay for the new units.

Her key promises included reducing crime and enforcing zoning laws, a hot-button issue in the constantly growing megalopolis, where developers routinely build bigger buildings than zoning rules allow.

Sheinbaum, who has a doctorate in environmental engineering, did post-doctoral research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and is a former member of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

She’s also a longtime associate of new leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The only previous female governor for the city of 9 million was Rosario Robles, who was appointed in 1999 to serve out the remaining year term of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas when he ran unsuccessfully for the presidency. </s> Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been extradited to the United States, according to a statement by the Mexican Foreign Ministry.

Mexican authorities had planned to turn Guzman, head of the Sinaloa cartel, over before Friday’s inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, a US official told CNN’s Evan Perez.

Guzman and other cartel leaders were indicted in 2009 in US District Court in Brooklyn, New York, on charges of conspiring to import more than 264,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States between 1990 and 2005. The alleged traffickers are accused of sharing drug transportation routes and obtaining their drugs from various Colombian drug organizations.

Guzman also faces charges in Arizona, California, Texas, Illinois, New York, Florida and New Hampshire.

Check back for updates on this developing story.

Here’s a look at the life of Joaquín Guzmán, otherwise known as “El Chapo,” a Mexican drug lord who has repeatedly broken out of prison, and has been extradited to the United States to stand trial on federal charges.

Marriages: Believed to have been married at least three times, the most recent being Emma Coronel Aispuro (2007-present)

Children: Is purported to have fathered between 12 and 13 children

Leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, which the US Justice Department describes as “one of the world’s most prolific, violent and powerful drug cartels,” moving billions upon billions of dollars in marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

Was able to continue running the Sinaloa Cartel in prison through bribes.

The Sinaloa Cartel controls roughly 40% to 60% of Mexico’s drug trade, with earnings at around $3 billion annually.

Claimed in 2014 that he has killed 2,000-3,000 people.

Is said to be semi-illiterate, receiving no formal education beyond third grade.

Is known for using intricate tunnel systems for both evading authorities and moving the massive quantities of drugs that made the Sinaloa Cartel so powerful.

His cartel has produced, smuggled and distributed marijuana, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other types of drugs.

Has appeared on both Forbes’ World’s Billionaires List and Most Powerful People List.

According to the US Treasury Department, he is the most “powerful drug trafficker in the world.”

Guzmán is perceived by some as a hero, with many narcocorridos, “drug ballads,” that glorify kingpins, written in his honor.

Guzmán faces charges in 10 legal cases in Mexico, as well as federal charges in Arizona, California, Texas, Illinois, New York, Florida and New Hampshire.

1970s – Begins running drugs to major Mexican cities and the US border and working with major drug traffickers such as Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, leader of the Guadalajara.

1980s – Member of the Guadalajara Cartel. After the arrest of Miguel Ángel Felix Gallardo, the cartel splits into factions. Guzmán becomes leader of the Sinaloa Cartel Pacific coast faction.

February 1992 – Police find the bodies of six Guzmán’s top lieutenants dumped along Tijuana highways; the six men had been tortured and shot.

November 1992 – Six people are gunned down at a discotheque in Puerto Vallarta by gunmen working for Guzmán, whose targets are traffickers in the Tijuana Cartel.

May 1993 – Gunmen with the Tijuana Cartel attempt to assassinate Guzmán in retribution, firing upon a vehicle at an airport. Guzmán escapes unharmed, but Cardinal Archbishop of Guadalajara Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampa, is killed accidentally, along with six others.

June 9, 1993 – Wanted on charges of drug trafficking, murder and kidnapping, he is arrested in Guatemala and extradited to Mexico. Guzmán is subsequently sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in a maximum security prison.

Early 2000s – Violence across Mexico escalates as El Chapo’s Sinaloa Cartel attempts to encroach upon Tijuana and Gulf Cartel territory.

January 19, 2001 – Escapes the maximum-security Puente Grande prison in Jalisco, Mexico, in a laundry cart. The planned escape requires bribes and cooperation allegedly costing him $2.5 million, according to Malcolm Beith’s book, “The Last Narco.”

2004 – The US government announces a $5 million reward for information leading to Guzmán’s arrest and conviction.

May 2008 – Guzmán’s son is murdered in a parking lot shootout near Culican, Mexico.

2009 – Guzmán and other cartel leaders are indicted on charges of conspiring to import more than 264,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States between 1990 and 2005.

August 2011 – Guzmán’s wife, Emma, who has dual US-Mexican citizenship, gives birth to twin girls in a hospital outside of Los Angeles.

2012 – The US Treasury Department uses the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act to freeze the US assets of his relatives.

February 22, 2014 – Guzmán is apprehended at a beach resort in Mazatlán, Mexico.

July 11, 2015 – Escapes the maximum-security Altiplano Federal Prison near Toluca, Mexico, by crawling through an opening in the shower area of his cell block leading to a nearly mile-long tunnel.

October 2015 – While on the run, he meets with movie star Sean Penn and Mexican actress Kate del Castillo. Penn’s interview with Guzmán subsequently runs in Rolling Stone magazine. “I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world,” Guzmán is quoted in the interview. “I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats.”

January 8, 2016 – Guzmán is recaptured by Mexican authorities in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, after a raid leads to a shootout in which five people connected to Guzmán are killed.

May 9, 2016 – A judge in Mexico approves the US’s request to extradite Guzmán, who faces charges in seven states. Once extradited, he will be sent to Brooklyn, New York, to stand trial on federal charges. </s> CLOSE Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says a new video analysis shows that parts of Obama's birth certificate were copied from another certificate. After arguing his point for five years, Arpaio says he will turn this new evidence over to the fed. USA TODAY

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio speaks during a press conference in Phoenix on Dec. 15, 2016, about an investigation into President Barack Obama's birth certificate. (Photo: David Wallace/The Republic)

PHOENIX — It was a presentation hyped by a tauntingly brief media notification more than 24 hours earlier: On Thursday afternoon, it said, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio would present the newest revelations on an investigation into President Obama’s birth certificate.

At 4 p.m. sharp, Arpaio and a member of his Sheriff's Office's Cold Case Posse had a big message for the 40-odd journalists in attendance: You were wrong.

Arpaio and his aides announced that a five-year investigation had "proved" that Obama’s birth certificate from Hawaii in 1961 was a fake. An accompanying presentation highlighted what they called “9 points of forgery” on the document, which focused on the angles of date stamps, typed letters and words.

According to the theory, the birth certificate presented to the public was created after copying and pasting information from the legitimate birth certificate of a woman born in Hawaii.

The conference included an audience of mostly older supporters, many of whom would clap their hands or nod their heads at various points of the event.

Mike Zullo, a posse member, talked throughout the bulk of the news conference, and for about 50 minutes walked the audience through what he claimed was irrefutable proof that the birth certificate had been forged.

Zullo repeatedly insisted that the probe was not political and that he simply wanted to “clear” the president of the United States.

“It didn’t work out that way,” he said.

ARPAIO, TRUMP ONCE ALIGNED ON 'BIRTHER' ISSUE

Arpaio's focus on the outgoing president has spanned several years. Obama was a favorite subject in Arpaio's fundraiser emails, speeches and campaign ads, and the president was blamed for the lawman's civil rights-related legal battles.

Arpaio's persistence on the "birther" issues has outlived that of many other once-fervent supporters.

President-elect Donald Trump had been a leader of the movement to prove Obama was not a natural-born citizen and was therefore not eligible for the nation's highest office. After years of persistent questioning — seen by many as racially motivated — the president produced his long-form birth certificate in April 2011.

In September, Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee, announced he was dropping the issue.

Obama responded in a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation: “I don’t know about you guys, but I am so relieved that the whole birther thing is over. I mean, ISIL, North Korea, poverty, climate change — none of those things weighed on my mind like the validity of my birth certificate.”

PROBE LAUNCHED BY POSSE MEMBERS

The Sheriff's Office's own "birther" investigation dates to August 2011, months after the White House website posted an image of Obama's birth certificate. The probe was led by the Sheriff's Office's Cold Case Posse, a non-profit arm of the office made up of often-retired volunteers.

Thursday's news conference recalled two other "birther" news conferences from 2012.

At those events, no one explicitly claimed the birth certificate was a fake. They were instead fueled by innuendo, the suspicions of volunteers, and a throng of impassioned "tea party" supporters.

In March 2012, Zullo spent 50 minutes walking the media through what he said were irregularities in the White House's posted document.

Zullo had a repeat performance in July of that year, when he explained the investigators' findings after a 10-day trip to Hawaii. At that event, Zullo said investigators located a 95-year-old woman who might have written coding on the copy of Obama's birth certificate. That woman, Zullo said, later told a fake reporter that the numbers on Obama's birth certificate were inconsistent with the time and place of his birth.

Zulllo has surfaced in more recent Arpaio controversies as well. He was one of the key figures in what's known as the "Seattle Operation" — a pet project of the sheriff's that became a focal point during Arpaio's contempt-of-court hearings last year.

Zullo’s task was to keep an eye on a computer programmer named Dennis Montgomery, who had told Arpaio he could prove the federal government had hacked into the bank accounts of thousands of Maricopa County residents.

Montgomery’s work soon seemed to stray from that mission, however. In reports provided to the Sheriff’s Office, Montgomery presents a web of conspiracies involving a federal judge presiding over a racial-profiling case against Arpaio, along with Eric Holder and various other federal officials. Arpaio’s critics said the operation was a thinly veiled attempt to undermine a judge who had ruled unfavorably against the sheriff.

Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2hM9Jv4 </s> MEXICO CITY, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Suspected gang members shot down a helicopter in a clash with police in the dangerous western Mexico state of Sinaloa on Tuesday, killing four people, the state's governor said.

Silvano Aureoles, the governor of Michoacan state, said on Twitter that the operation took place near the violent city of Apatzingan, and was aimed at detaining "leaders of criminal cells". It was not immediately which gang was responsible.

"During the operation, an official helicopter which was supporting the patrol in area of difficult access was shot down," he said. "We lament the death of the pilot, three police officers and a police officer who was injured." (Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter, Adriana Barrera and Lizbeth Diaz; Editing by Simon Gardner)
Quirino Ordaz Coppel is sworn in as Governor of the Mexican state of Sinaloa.