Who was going to tell El Nini when he took his first steps in the world of drug trafficking, that he would end up becoming a symbol of the end of a political Administration; of the culmination of six years of turbulent diplomatic relations in the even more turbulent war on drugs. Arrested at the end of November in a wealthy neighborhood of Culiacán, the Sinaloa Cartel boss set foot on American soil six months later, after 184 days in a Mexican prison. Washington, which has been on the trail of the chief bodyguard of Los Chapitos for years and wields a whole arsenal of judicial accusations against him, was in a hurry and did not want to leave anything to chance: Mexico holds presidential elections next Saturday that will give birth to a new Government, although everything indicates that the ruling party will remain in power. Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas will be, barring a major surprise, the last major extradition of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s six-year term.
In the first photograph that has been released of the extradition, released this Monday by Millennium, Nini descends from a plane escorted by DEA agents, dressed in impeccable prison cream, shaved and well-combed, with a coat that covers his presumably handcuffed hands. He has already been committed to the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn. A high-end hitman, one of the crimes attributed to him is the murder of a woman whom he used as a human guinea pig and killed with injections to experience the purity of fentanyl, a drug that even in minuscule proportions can be lethal. About 30 years old and 1.70 meters tall, Pérez Salas is charged with conspiracy to traffic cocaine and methamphetamine, possession of firearms and explosive devices, or intimidation of witnesses in the District of Columbia court in 2021; organized crime, fentanyl trafficking and money laundering in the Southern District Court of New York in 2023.
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, He ran to thank his Mexican counterpart for the extradition the same day the drug trafficker crossed the border: “Our governments will continue to work together to attack the fentanyl and synthetic drug epidemic that is killing so many people in our countries and around the world, and to bring criminals and criminals to justice.” the organizations that produce, traffic and sell these lethal poisons in our two countries.” Biden added in a statement: “El Nini played a prominent role in the infamous Sinaloa Cartel, one of the deadliest drug trafficking companies in the world. The United States has accused him of his role in the illicit trafficking of fentanyl and of murdering, torturing and kidnapping numerous rivals, witnesses and others. “This is a good day for justice.”
United States Attorney General Merrick B. Garland joined the celebrations: “I thank our counterparts in the Mexican Government for their extraordinary efforts to arrest and extradite El Nini. With this police action, El Nini joins the growing list of cartel leaders and associates accused in the United States and extradited to this country. “The Department of Justice will continue to pursue the cartels responsible for flooding our communities with fentanyl and other drugs.” Also the US ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, who described it as a “great achievement for our people, which demonstrates once again the great things that our nations can achieve together.”
From bosses to snitches
Nini joins a long list of bloodthirsty Mexican drug traffickers, members of the leadership of their respective cartels, who become snitches for the US justice system in search of reduced sentences. This is how a New York court managed to convict Genaro García Luna, Secretary of Public Security during the six-year term of the PAN member Felipe Calderón (2006-2012): the anti-drug czar who was actually on Joaquín’s payroll El Chapo Guzmán Loera, sentenced years earlier by the same judge and against whom witnesses who previously belonged to the drug cartels were also used.
The United States has declared war on the Sinaloa Cartel, which it considers the main importer of fentanyl in its territory. In April 2023, the Department of Justice filed charges against 28 members of the criminal group, including Los Chapitos, El Chapo’s sons, Iván Archivaldo and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar and Ovidio Guzmán López, the latter detained in Mexico in January 2023 and extradited to the United States last September. The heirs of El Chapo are considered the current leaders of one of the most powerful factions of those from Sinaloa, opposed against Ismael May Zambada, the only active capo since the first days of the organization who has never fallen into the hands of justice.
Nini is one of those 28 high-ranking officials persecuted by the United States, a potential confidant with privileged information who can help build a larger case against Ovidio Guzmán López. The US Attorney’s Office believes that Ovidio The mouse Until his arrest, he was the leader of the cartel, which makes him one of the main people responsible for flooding the streets with fentanyl, an opioid epidemic that has killed tens of thousands of people north of the border. Guzmán López pleaded not guilty to all the charges of which he was accused in the first hearing in a Chicago court.
The Prosecutor’s Office has arguments to use El Nini to build the case against El Ratón. Few people within the cartel have as much first-hand information as he does. The hitman is also identified as one of the architects of the Culiacanazothe first failed attempt to capture Ovidio Guzmán in 2019. Then, an elite group of the Army detained him at his home in Culiacán, but his henchmen reacted by setting the city on fire with shootings and murders that forced the Government to release the criminal.
In January 2023, when El Ratón was arrested in the second Culiacanazo, the organization once again tried to plunge the capital of Sinaloa into panic, but this time López Obrador did not give in. The United States, however, believes that El Nini’s hand was also hidden behind the second attempt to rescue his boss. The big question now is whether, like so many others before him, Pérez Salas will end up testifying against his former employer, the same one he freed by burning down a city.
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