A day after fugitive Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was captured, the Mexican government has said it aims to fulfill an extradition request from the United States for the notorious cartel kingpin, a source within the Mexican attorney general’s office told NBC News on Saturday.
Guzman, who was captured Friday after a six-month manhunt, faces charges in numerous jurisdictions across the United States.
While the Justice Department doesn’t comment on extradition requests, a senior official said Friday: “I can confirm that it is the practice of the United States to seek extradition whenever defendants subject to U.S. charges are apprehended in another country.”
The timing of Guzman’s extradition to the United States would depend heavily on any injunctions filed by his lawyers, the source said.
Guzman was recaptured during an operation in the northwestern Mexican town of Los Mochis. He was transported shortly after he was apprehended to Antiplano — the same maximum-security prison where he escaped from on July 11.
Extraditing Guzman to America would help allay fears the drug lord could use his massive fortune to bribe prison officials and escape from a Mexican maximum security jail yet again.
Gabe Gutierrez