| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | December 2008 
Mexico: Calderon Extraditing Drug Suspects to U.S. at Record Rates
 Ken Ellingwood - Los Angeles Times
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| | President Calderon’s administration has handed over more than 150 criminal suspects since coming to power in December 2006. | |
Mexico City — The government of President Felipe Calderon is extraditing drug suspects and other fugitives to the United States at a record pace, reflecting a quiet but seismic shift in Mexican policy that many analysts say could help dismantle drug-trafficking gangs.
Calderon’s administration has handed over more than 150 criminal suspects since coming to power in December 2006.
The extradition rate is double what it was before Calderon took office. And it represents a radical policy change from a decade ago, when Mexico, sensitive about its sovereignty, rarely handed over suspects for prosecution in the United States.
Officials and analysts say Mexico’s new posture on extradition signals Calderon’s determination to combat violent drug-smuggling groups through closer collaboration with U.S. authorities. At the same time, the United States is promising $1.4 billion in security aid for Mexico over three years.
"Calderon’s message is, 'Trust in me. I’m sending you these people, and I have the willingness to work with you,’ "said Raul Benitez, an expert on U.S.-Mexican relations at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
The list of suspects extradited under Calderon includes marquee names such as Osiel Cardenas, the head of the so-called Gulf cartel, and brothers Ismael and Gilberto Higuera Guerrero, identified as bosses in the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix organization.
Extradition proceedings are under way against Eduardo Arellano Felix, an alleged kingpin captured by Mexican forces in Tijuana after a shootout in October. U.S. officials sought his extradition last year.
"Under the Calderon administration, we have seen a significant increase not only in the number of extraditions, but in the higher profile of the criminals being extradited, clearly demonstrating that Mexico will not allow itself to be used as a refuge or safe haven," said Antonio Garza Jr., the U.S. ambassador to Mexico.
Mexico extradited 83 suspects to the United States last year and has handed over 70 this year, according to U.S. figures. Fifty-one more cases await approval by Mexican judges. In return, U.S. authorities say that they have sent 26 wanted suspects to Mexico this year, a record.
The jump in extraditions from Mexico is one of the few measurable results in Calderon’s war against organized crime.
The nation’s drug violence, meanwhile, has worsened. The death toll this year is more than 4,000, according to unofficial tallies by Mexican news outlets, and there is little evidence that Mexican forces have dislodged drug-smuggling operations from strongholds along the U.S. border and elsewhere.
In several cases, extraditing kingpins appears to have sparked violent struggles to fill the vacuum at the top.
Members of the Gulf cartel have jostled for control since Cardenas was extradited in early 2007. Much of the violence convulsing Tijuana in recent months stems from clashes among rival members after the arrests or deaths of some of the Arellano Felix group’s most powerful leaders.
Mexico began handing over a growing number of suspects under Calderon’s predecessor, Vicente Fox, who was president from 2000 to 2006. But some legal barriers did not fall until 2005, when the Supreme Court cleared the way for Mexico to extradite its citizens in cases involving life terms.
Mexico no longer rules out extradition in cases that carry the possibility of life in prison without parole, although it still refuses to extradite if the defendant faces death. |
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