The US is collaborating with Mexico in bringing a recently arrested alleged top drug lord to justice, a State Department spokeswoman said on Friday refusing to say whether the US was seeking his extradition.
“I can tell you we’re cooperating with our partners in Mexico to make sure [The Barbie] is prosecuted,” the spokeswoman said asking that she not be identified.
Texas-born Edgar Valdez Villarreal, known as “The Barbie” for his fair complexion, was arrested on Tuesday in central Mexico, after a 14-month investigation by some 1,200 police.
A ruthless lieutenant of notorious drug cartel boss Arturo Beltran Leyva, Valdez, 37 is blamed for dozens of murders, many by mutilation and beheading, in western Mexico in recent months. In the US, he is wanted on charges of drug trafficking by courts in Atlanta, Georgia, and New Orleans, Louisiana.
Both Mexico and the US offered rewards of US$2 million for information leading to his arrest.
The spokeswoman refused to comment on the likelihood of a US extradition request against Valdez, which Mexican media said both governments could soon announce.
At the time of his arrest, Mexico’s federal police chief did not rule out that Valdez could be sent to the US.
Meanwhile, Mexican police have arrested six suspects in a bar fire that killed eight in the resort city of Cancun.
Quintana Roo state Attorney General Francisco Alor says the suspects told police a drug gang hired them to throw gasoline bombs at the bar, presumably in an attempt at extortion.
Businesses throughout Mexico are often hit up for protection money and sometimes set on fire if they refuse.
Alor did not say on Friday who might have been targeted it or which gang may have been involved.
Six women and two men died in Tuesday’s pre-dawn blaze at the Castillo del Mar bar, in a poor area far from Cancun’s tourist zone.
The city has largely avoided Mexico’s drug violence, but cartels and migrant traffickers operate in the area.
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