Mexico has extradited a former state governor to the US to face charges of helping a cartel smuggling cocaine through the resort of Cancun en route to the US market.
Mario Villanueva, who was governor of the Caribbean state of Quintana Roo from 1993 to 1999, was turned over to US authorities on Saturday at the international airport in Toluca, a city near the Mexican capital, the federal Attorney General’s Office said in a statement.
Villanueva is the first former governor to be extradited to the US on drug charges.
PHOTO: EPA
He is charged in New York federal court with aiding the Juarez cartel smuggle hundreds of tonnes of Colombian cocaine to the US via Cancun. US prosecutors have said Villanueva received US$500,000 for each of several shipments he aided.
Villanueva is the 326th criminal suspect Mexico has extradited to the US under the government of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, which has stepped up the extradition process as the two countries intensify cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking.
Villanueva allegedly helped the Juarez cartel when it was headed by Amado Carillo Fuentes, one of Mexico’s top drug kingpins until he died in 1997 while undergoing plastic surgery.
Villanueva “gave orders to allow shipments of cocaine to be unloaded and stored in ranches in Quintana Roo, to be later sent to the neighboring country by land or air,” the Attorney General’s office said.
He had been fighting extradition to the US for years.
He disappeared two weeks before his term ended in 1999 after learning that Mexican authorities were seeking his arrest on drug trafficking charges. He spent two years in hiding before he was arrested in Cancun in 2001.
Villanueva, who belonged to the Institutional Revolutionary Party that ruled Mexico for 71 years until 2000, was convicted of money laundering charges and sentenced to six years in prison. He was released in 2007 but was immediately re-arrested on the US extradition request.
In 2008, a Mexican court sentenced him to 36 years for fomenting drug trafficking, overturning the earlier ruling that had convicted him of money laundering but cleared him of drug smuggling and organized crime charges.
In the past, few top drug suspects were extradited to the US because they argued they should face justice first in Mexico but Calderon has shown greater willingness to extradite suspects since taking office in 2006.
Villanueva’s extradition “shows the close collaboration between Mexico and the government of the US in the fight against crime, ensuring that our national territory does not become a refuge for fugitives of justice,” the Attorney General’s office said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was