US charges top suspected Mexican drug lord, others

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The United States has filed  new charges against Mexico’s top drug lord and other drug  cartel leaders for smuggling billions of dollars worth of  cocaine across the border, but they remain at large, U.S.  authorities said yesterday.

U.S. officials announced the charges in New York and  Chicago against Joaquin Guzman, Mexico’s most wanted man, and  other accused leaders, high-ranking members and associates of  several of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels. In all 44  people from the United States and Mexico were charged.

Guzman, known as “Shorty,” is at the centre of the violent  drugs war that has killed more than 13,000 people in Mexico in  the last three years. He and some of the others faced previous  U.S. drug trafficking charges.

The United States, aiming to crack down on escalating drug  trafficking and violence along the border with Mexico, seeks  the forfeiture of more than $5.8 billion in drug proceeds as  part of the charges.    “The cartels whose alleged leaders are charged today  constitute multibillion dollar networks that funnel drugs onto  our streets,” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said.

The indictment accuses Guzman, along with Ismael Zambada  Garcia and Arturo Beltran Leyva, of being among the most  powerful drug traffickers in Mexico. Also indicted was Vicente  Carrillo Fuentes, the alleged head of the Juarez drug cartel.

If captured and convicted, all but one of the defendants  face up to life in prison.

Guzman, the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, is the drug  gangster most responsible for the wave of killings in Mexico in  recent years as he tries to expand his empire to other parts of  the country like Ciudad Juarez on the border with Texas.

He escaped from a high-security jail in Mexico in 2001 in a  laundry van shortly before he was due to be extradited to the  United States.

According to the charges, the defendants were responsible  for smuggling into the United States nearly 200 tonnes of  cocaine and large amounts of heroin between 1990 and the end of  last year.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) estimates  that some 90 percent of the cocaine that comes into the United  States enters through Mexico.

Holder and Michele Leonhart, the DEA’s acting head, told a  news conference the United States has offered a reward of up to  $5 million for information leading to the arrests of each of  the accused Mexican drug cartel leaders.

“Let me make something very, very clear here; these are not  symbolic acts that we are taking today. Our intention is to  indict these people, to get these people to the United States  and to put them in jail for extended periods of time,” Holder  said.

According to the charges, the cartel leaders employed  hitmen who carried out hundreds of acts of violence in Mexico,  including murders, kidnappings and torture.

The defendants were accused of importing cocaine from  Central and South American countries through Mexico and into  the United States using cargo aircraft, submarines, container  ships, fishing vessels, buses, rail cars, trucks and  automobiles.