U.S. lauds record extradition rates

In the cross-border war against narco-trafficking, Mexico is sending a record number of criminal suspects to the United States for prosecution, a point of pride for President Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who met in Washington this week for their first formal state visit.

But the sharp rise in extraditions has not been matched by broader success in breaking the violent crime syndicates that control much of the border. In fact, the extraditions might be responsible for a surge in brutality, say experts in and out of government.

Mexico extradited 107 alleged criminal offenders last year, far more than any previous year, and is on pace to top that number in 2010, according to Justice Department statistics. A dozen high-level traffickers have been convicted in the past two years in cities such as Houston, Miami, Los Angeles and Chicago.

The strategy has yielded mixed results in the struggle to curtail illegal trafficking of drugs, weapons, money and people. Extraditing high-ranking mobsters has sparked more ferocious turf battles both within the cartels and between rival organizations. But officials from both nations say bringing Mexican criminals to justice in the United States sends a strong signal that the two countries remain committed to the drug war.

The latest big catch came last week when federal prosecutors in New York charged a former Mexican governor with numerous counts of money laundering and drug conspiracy.

Investigators spent 11 years chasing Mario Ernesto Villanueva Madrid, who is accused of taking millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for providing police protection to the Juarez cartel as it smuggled 200 tons of cocaine into the United States.

He is the highest-ranking former official to be extradited from Mexico, and his case is proof, say leaders in both countries, of the unprecedented level of cooperation between the two neighboring countries.

"The tempo of these criminal investigations and prosecutions will only increase in coming months," Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said at a Senate hearing Tuesday.

For years, Mexico was reluctant to turn over suspects, viewing extradition as a loss of sovereignty. Then-Mexican President Vicente Fox, who was elected in 2000, began to soften that position, and Calderon, elected in late 2006, has made extradition a key plank of an anti-trafficking agenda that includes mass deployments of the Mexican military to battle cartels.

Modeled after a similar approach in Colombia, the extraditions are intended to reduce organized crime by taking cartel masterminds out of circulation.

"We are dislocating the command and control structures of organized crime," said Arturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the United States and a key adviser to Calderon.

Extradition also acts as a deterrent, said one veteran Drug Enforcement Administration agent who requested anonymity in order to speak freely.

"Incarceration in the U.S. is what they fear the most, because it puts them in our system and out of their comfort zone," the agent said.

Mexico's prison system is widely viewed as weak and, often, corrupt. Some of the most notorious convicts have broken out of the jails or simply directed their syndicates from behind bars.

Once a defendant is in the United States, however, communication is more difficult. Equally important, investigators have extracted valuable intelligence from cartel members brought here.

Take the case of Osiel Cardenas Guillen, one of the most feared drug lords in all of Mexico. As head of the Gulf cartel, he built up a vast smuggling operation known for its deadly force. A larger-than-life character famous for brandishing a gold-plated rifle, Cardenas is said to have risen to power by executing a friend. (next page »)