Extraditions are complicated

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Zetatijuana article

Subject matter: Extradition of top capos of all cartels
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

Reporter: Luis Carlos Sainz
Before an uncertain political collaboration against crime, extraditions could be bogged down between Mexico and the United States. More than 60 narco traffickers and some foreigners are in prison awaiting this process. Before a tightening of security, trade, migration and diplomatic measures from the USA, Mexico has an ace up its sleeve, ensures the Spanish researcher Jesus Perez Caballero. Z-40, La Tuta, El Viceroy, El Cuini, and fugitives like Rafael Caro Quintero, El Mencho, El Azul, and El Mayo Zambada are currency.

Before Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, Mexico delivered in extradition 86 alleged criminals to the United States in a matter of nine months. In exchange the American Government delivered to our country  seven, in the same manner to be processed. Now the panorama in materials of extradition appears uncertain, when there are more than seventy alleged narco traffickers waiting to be sent to the American Union.

The delivery of the ex leader of the Sinaloa cartel during these last days of the administration of Barack Obama as president of the United States could have been the last friendly extradition between these two countries, one can hear the voices of analysts about this subject, into which type of leader Donald Trump will convert into.

The primary messages emitted by the magnate have advertised that the bilateral relations will be very turbulent. In the opinion of the Spanish academic investigator, raised in Mexico, Jesus Perez Caballero, the Trump administration have declared war on narco traffickers and the most violent acts committed by Mexican narco trafficking groups, to obtain a political debt, economic or migratory, to press Mexico for the adoption of a submissive role in the politics of the new Republican Government.

America is the main commercial partner of Mexico, also in matters of justice, are the nation with which Mexico has a greater exchange of criminal fugitives, as during the period from 1st of September 2015 to the 30th of June of 2016, when 90 prisoners, four women and 86 men were extradited from Mexico, 86 of them to the USA, according to information of the PGR.

Interviewed by Zeta, Perez Caballero emphasized that during the eight years of the administration of Obama there had been a continuity in the treaty, the treaty with Felipe Calderon, like that with Enrique Pena Nieto, and inclusive of the defeated candidate Hillary Clinton, showed an understanding of the manner in which the two nations share their problems, which will not continue with Trump.

Alleged narco traffickers from different drug cartels, of the calibre of Vincente Carrillo Fuentes “El Viceroy”, Hector Manuel Beltran Leyva El H,

Abigael Gonzaelz Valencia “El Cuini, the brothers, Miguel Angel and Oscar Omar Trevino Morales “El Z-40 and El Z-42″; Ismael Zambada Imperial “El Mayito Gordo”, Refnando Sanchez Arellano “El Ingeniero” and the brother of El Chapo, Miguel Angel guzman Loera “El Mudo”, are waiting to be extradited to the country to the North.

The present and future

The extradition of El Chapo Guzman, has been symbolic of the fight against the narco traffickers inside of the shared narrative of Mexico and the United States, just in this political moment, before Trump was invested, Mexico made this gesture towards the Obama administration, said the doctor of International Security and post doctoral grant holder of the Institute of Social Research of the Autonomous University of Mexico.

“It is clear that the Mexican government didn’t want to show any hostility before Trump, in all, just in this moment this acted as a hinge, to the outgoing administration. From my point of view this can be interpreted, in the absence of more data, as a political maneuver that shows both a recognition to the outgoing administration as an opening to continue collaborating with the incoming administration”, says the researcher.

Perez Caballero estimates that the delivery of Guzman Loera doesn’t have to be an especially critical question, to the extent that the rights of Chapo were not violated, which had become a problematic subject by their leaks, and the possibility of activating cores of corruption that allowed him to have differential treatment in prison. Although he admits that the pace of justice was adapted tot he pace of the Mexican Executive so the extradition was possible for the date it was carried out.

About the future of extraditions of capos, concludes that the procedure and execution , the Iberian expert showed that in the topic, there have always been not only legal but political nuances, understood as a series of actions to show, to send a message to a country to which it extradites and also its institutions, to the citizenship or to the possible individuals to be extradited.

How can we understand this perspective on the possible future extraditions of high ranking narco traffickers ? Well, its going to depend on the message that it wants to give to the United States. Its going to depend on if the Trump administrations pressure, for example, to extradite certain persons. Its also going to depend on if these captured individuals can be utilized by the Mexican Government, expressed Dr Perez.

In his interview he clarified  that the extraditions also will guide the criteria of public opinion and its not the same scrutiny that the citizenry of the media can make, in the case like of El Chapo Guzman,  that every time he appears in the media, by the very nature of his media figure subjectively, that the other high ranking narco traffickers do not have this high media profile. It will have to be seen how it utilizes extraditions, if one wants to gain visibility, if one wants to send a message to the citizenry, if one wants to send a message of strength, et-cetera.

The postures

Donald Trump already has given a message of the immediate changes in his political relations, commercial, migratory and of security with the other countries of the world, among them Mexico, with its shared territories, and for that, “its probable that Trump will be less tolerant to action of a self regulation more inclined to drug trafficking.

The action of legalization, for example, its probable that Trump will be reactive, its probable also he will also implement a political hard hand towards Mexico. Its likely that any act that is perceived in the border areas between Mexico and the USA will be praised and will serve to keep the pressure on Mexico, stresses Jesus Perez Caballero.

“We are going to see how this plays out in its relation to Mexican narco traffickers or organized crime groups; how they can, is it better, with propaganda actions, to plan violent actions against the interests of the USA or the frontier. It could make the relationship more tense.

It is clear that before, let us say, elephant, to use a metaphor, as is Trump, who reacts to any act, it is very easy for the “wasps” of organized crime to bother him, they could create and action – reaction with consequences that for the time being we cannot for see.

The investigator points out that it is likely that the USA will make its strategy more punitive, like the construction of the wall, or that it will imply that the cost in human rights will continue in “assisted breathing”, that means the strategy of militarization.

For his part, the Mexican authorities wont implement profound actions of reform, and follow current strategy of narco counter insurgency.

Extraditions will continue to be used to send messages, for both the USA and Mexico, the proper Mexican society, as for the subject of extradition, ” but I do not think there is, today, a policy of systematic delivery of high ranking drug traffickers to the USA administration, mostly because of explicit policy.

Mexico would lose its “ace up the sleeve”, it would lose the possibility of to extradite or not. that is to say, also extraditions are a low policy that can be placed on the table in a volatile environment.

Narcos awaiting extradition

In addition to the narcos delivered in extradition, through the Secretary of Exterior Relations, in nine months between 2015 and 2016, Mexico transferred 17 foreigners sentenced in Mexico to their places of origin to finish their sentences given out in Mexican courts, in exchange, twenty four persons were transferred to Mexico for the fulfillment of their sentences, in accordance with the treaty of execution of criminal sentences.

On Mexican soil, in Federal prisons, the majority in the maximum security prison Altiplano, one can find fifty alleged narco traffickers of high profile that are claimed for extradition by USA, even though in not all cases have the USA effected formal petitions. Together with the capos still at liberty, the list represents seventy persons, many of them known through forms of media.

The list of extraditable starts with Hector Manuel Beltran Leyva “El H”, and continues with Ismael Zambada Imperial, Servando Gomez Martinez, Vincente Carrillo Fuentes, Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, Oscar Omar Trevino Morales, Hector Manuel Avendano Ojeda, Jesus Alfredo Salazar Ramirez, Adan Salazar Zamorano, Rodolfo Lopez Ibarra, Carlos Navarro Durazo, Angel Dominguez Ramirez, Ruben Antonio Calderilla Reyes, Alfonso Lira Sotelo, Luis Arellano Romero, Juan Francisco Sillas Rocha, Carlos Herrera Avalos aka Gustavo Rivera Martinez.

Also claimed in USA investigations are Abigael Gonzalez Valencia, Fernando Sánchez Arellano, Mario Alberto Ramírez Treviño, J. Jesús Méndez Vargas, Juan José Álvarez Tostado Galván, Martín Gaudencio Avendaño, Carlos Alberto Cerda Torres, Rafael Duarte Torres, Alfonso Limón Sánchez, Felipe Cabrera Sarabia, José Antonio Torres Marrufo, Valentín Sáenz Cruz, Luis Guillermo Castillo Rubio, Rubén Garza Rodríguez, Noel Salgueiro Nevárez, Inés Enrique Torres Acosta, Fidel Urbina and Rafael Rivera Salomón.

The father in law of El Chapo Guzman, Ines Coronel Barrera, is among the list of formal requests. The list follows with, Gabino Peralta Saucedo, Juan Padilla Vizcarra, Jesús Ramón Núñez Angulo, Rafael Guadalupe Félix Núñez, Sergio Garza Treviño, Jesús Raúl Beltrán León, Arnoldo Rueda Molina, Ramón Álvarez Ayala, Miguel Ángel Guzmán Loera, Víctor Manuel Félix Félix, Miguel Ángel Aramiz Herrera, Juan Jesús Flores Lara, Francisco Javier Cantabrana Parra, Lucio Hernández Lechuga, Alfredo Andrade Parra, José Meléndez Tarín Óscar Mogollón Restrepo and Gerardo Álvarez Vázquez.

For the persons not currently detained it mentions Rafael Caro Quintero, Emilio Sajid Quintero Navidad “El Cadete” (Cousin of Caro), Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, Juan José Esparragoza Moreno “El Azul”, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes “El Mencho” and Fausto Isidro Meza Flores “El Chapo Isidro”.

Capos of all colors are codified to be carried to USA justice with multiple charges in their Federal courts.

Original article in Spanish at Zetatijuana