A judge in Mexico has ruled that there is nothing stopping the extradition of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman to the United States, and Guzman subsequently was transferred to a prison in Ciudad Juarez near the Texas border on Saturday, according to a recent article in The New York Times. As the article states, this suggests that Mexico’s secretary of foreign relations and the Peña Nieto administration will have 30 days to decide whether to extradite him, though the process could still take months, if not years, with defense appeals. The likely fear for some powerful and corrupt officials in Mexico is that Guzman has a wealth of information related to their dirty dealings with drug traffickers. As security expert Alejandro Hope has pointed out, the fear for the Mexican government could also be that the flow of intel from Guzman could shut down once he is in the United States as U.S. law enforcement officials become tightlipped in fear of leaks to Mexico. The unintended impact of the United States’ involvement in the decapitations of cartel leadership figures is now on everyone’s mind following Alfredo Corchado’s recent brilliant reporting for the Dallas Morning News on the plea deal Gulf cartel head Osiel Cardenas Guillen agreed to once in U.S. custody.
Moving Guzman could serve multiple functions. First, an unscheduled and unannounced move could be an effective mechanism to disrupt a potential escape plot. Guzman has twice escaped from maximum security prisons, and most of these prisons have the exact same layouts, as we learned from his last escape.
Second, moving Guzman to Juarez puts him closer to U.S. surveillance. The Drug Enforcement Agency’s El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) is just across the border, as are many other U.S. assets, including possibly a rapid reaction force. At this point, the normally sovereignty sensitive Mexican government is likely increasing its cooperation with the U.S. on this matter to avoid another humiliation.
Third, his presence in Juarez could facilitate a rapid and unannounced transfer to U.S. custody. An extradition request was submitted prior to his last escape. A U.S. counter cartel task force member offered an excellent description of this extradition process during a National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund event featuring the law enforcement task force members that targeted the Arellano Felix Organization (Tijuana cartel).
Fourth, while federal indictments against Guzman filed in New York and Chicago have garnered the most attention, he also faces indictment in the Western district of Texas (El Paso). Guzman’s extradition could be handled differently from other past major kingpin extraditions, which were typically conducted via airplane and airports. At any time, Guzman simply could be driven across the border in the middle of the night to El Paso where he could also stand trial, making Texas a one-stop shop for both his extradition and the first of many potential trials.
The conspiracy theory that I find highly unlikely is that this is a move to allow Guzman to escape, orchestrated at the highest levels of government. That has not stopped former DEA agents from validly pointing out that the Sinaloa cartel has the infrastructure in place in Ciudad Juarez to pull off such an operation and that the quality of the of the Ciudad Juarez prison is low.
I predict a fairly rapid extradition process from here, but I must admit I have been wrong in the past on things related to “El Chapo” Guzman: I was fairly certain the Mexican Marines would not bring him in alive a second time.
Nathan P. Jones is a nonresident scholar for the Baker Institute Mexico Center and Drug Policy Program. He is also an assistant professor of security studies at Sam Houston State University.
This material may be quoted or reproduced without prior permission, provided appropriate credit is given to the author and Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. The views expressed herein are those of the individual author(s), and do not necessarily represent the views of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.
