Mexico charges U.S.-born drug kingpin Valdez Villarreal, faces extradition process

[News_Editor]

Mexico charges U.S.-born drug kingpin Valdez Villarreal, faces extradition process

2010-11-21 02:01:57 GMT+7 (ICT)

MEXICO CITY (BNO NEWS) -- Mexican Attorney General's Office on Saturday said prosecutors have filled charges against alleged drug kingpin Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez Villarreal, who also faces a formal extradition process to the U.S.

Prosecutors said Valdez Villarreal faces drug trafficking, kidnapping and arms possession charges, but he also faces a extradition process pursuant to a provisional arrest request from a U.S. court.

Villarreal was charged by a U.S. district court in Louisiana for smuggling cocaine into the U.S., where authorities had offered a reward of up to $2 million for information leading to his arrest.

Villarreal, 37, who was held by Mexican authorities pending charges since his August 30 arrest to build the case against him, was transferred to federal prison on Saturday.

Federal police arrested Villarreal in a residential area in the state of Mexico, which borders the capital of Mexico City, after a yearlong intelligence operation.

Texas-born Valdez Villarreal had worked for the Sinaloa cartel and the Beltran Leyva cartel, a drug organization in which Villarreal had been battling for control after the killing of its leader, Arturo Beltran Leyva, in December 2009 in Cuernavaca, near Mexico City.

He was also linked to the Colombian terrorist group FARC.

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