By EFE
May 25, 2024, 18:04 PM EDT
The United States Department of Justice reported this Saturday that Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas, known as Nini and “one of the main hitmen of the Sinaloa Cartel,” was handed over to US authorities for extradition.
“El Nini was one of the main hitmen of the Sinaloa Cartel and responsible for the murder, torture and kidnapping of rivals and witnesses who threatened the criminal drug trafficking enterprise. “He also participated in the production and sale of fentanyl, including in the United States,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in a statement about this extradition.
The Sinaloa Cartel member will be sent to New York state to face charges of organized crime, fentanyl trafficking, firearms possession and money laundering.
Nini also has an indictment in a District of Columbia court for alleged involvement in the production and distribution of cocaine, methamphetamine, possession of firearms and obstruction of Justice.
The US offered $3 million dollars for his capture
He is one of the most wanted criminals in the United States, who before his arrest offered a reward of $3 million dollars for his capture.
Until now he was provisionally detained in the Altiplano Penitentiary, a maximum security prison in the State of Mexico, where he arrived after his capture last November in Culiacán, state of Sinaloa, in an operation by the Armed Forces.
Mexican authorities consider him the alleged head of hitmen for the Sinaloa Cartel and the head of security for Los Chapitos. They also accuse him of ordering attacks on the military housing unit in Culiacán, of a series of attacks against the Army and of executing eight people in Tamazula, Durango state, in October.
Thus, after the handover, the United States Department of Justice thanked the Mexican government for its “extraordinary efforts” in the capture, who joins a long list of cartel leaders extradited for their responsibility in “flooding communities in the United States with fentanyl.” and other drugs,” according to Garland.
Last September, Ovidio Guzmán López, son of Joaquín “el Chapo” Guzmán and known as El Ratón, was extradited to the United States, accused of leading a criminal organization, money laundering and trafficking all types of drugs, including fentanyl.
There he pleaded not guilty to all five charges and is serving time in an Illinois state prison.
The Sinaloa Cartel, according to the United States, is the “most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world” and largely responsible for the production and manufacturing of fentanyl for distribution in the United States, where this drug, considered 50 times more powerful than heroin , is “the leading” cause of death among Americans ages 18 to 49.
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