Reputed Drug Lord Caught In Mexico, Flown To U.S. Arrest Follows Months Of U.S. Pressure On President Zedillo

Federal authorities arrested a man accused of being one of the hemisphere’s most powerful and murderous drug lords, Juan Garcia Abrego, and promptly expelled him to the United States, where he is wanted on drug trafficking and money laundering charges, the government announced on Monday.

Mexican anti-drug agents seized Garcia Abrego, who was reportedly born in Texas and was included in the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list last March, in the northern city of Monterrey on Sunday night and flew him to Mexico City, said Juan Ignacio Zavala, a spokesman for the Federal Attorney General’s office.

On Monday afternoon, Garcia Abrego was put on a Mexican government plane and flown to Houston for delivery to American law enforcement, Zavala said.

Garcia Abrego has been indicted in Houston for conspiracy to possess, distribute and import cocaine and for money laundering.

Garcia Abrego is the most important drug trafficker the Mexican authorities have arrested since 1989. Operating across the border from Texas, where he maintained a large private army, he reputedly took government corruption to new heights with millions of dollars in monthly bribes.

He pioneered a direct Mexican role in the distribution of Colombian cocaine within the United States, operating in markets from Houston to New York.

The arrest of Garcia Abrego follows months of U.S. pressure on the government of President Ernesto Zedillo to step up actions against the drug mafias. His capture, and the Mexican government’s willingness to deliver him to U.S. officials, represented a warming in the often strained relationship between drug officials of the two countries.

“Believe me, we’re pleased to be able to announce this arrest,” Zavala said. “This demonstrates just how firmly we’re working to combat the drug trade.”

In Washington, Nicholas Burns, a State Department spokesman, on Monday called Garcia Abrego’s arrest “a triumph for the Mexican government and for close U.S.-Mexican collaboration in anti-narcotics matters.” The FBI had offered a $2-million reward for Garcia Abrego’s capture.

Over more than a decade, Garcia Abrego built a cocaine smuggling empire worth an estimated $10 billion, based in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas and with operations ranging from New York to Houston, Dallas, and Cali, Colombia. He has been accused of ordering dozens of killings, including several massacres.

Garcia Abrego holds both American and Mexican citizenship documents, and in expelling him to the United States, Mexican authorities took advantage of an article in the constitution that permits the expulsion of foreigners without trial, circumventing lengthy extradition or deportation hearings.