The US asks Mexico for the extradition of the leader of the Gulf cartel

The US charges 'El Contador', alleged leader of the Gulf Cartel, with drug trafficking.

Arrested in February in Mexico City, José Alfredo Cárdenas Martínez, alias

, leader of the Gulf cartel, has also been claimed by the US. The Department of Justice has formally requested this Thursday the extradition of the capo, one of the last members from the family to Cárdenas, bosses of the historic Mexican mafia of the northeast, one of the oldest in the country, now in decline.

The Cárdenas case seems to follow the recent roadmap, at least for the arrests of high-ranking members of organized crime in the north of the country.

Last week, Juan Gerardo Treviño,

, another capo of the remnants of the Zetas, was detained and expressly sent across the border.

The charges against Cárdenas are, in fact, prior to the arrest in Mexico City.

A federal court jury for the Eastern District of Texas endorsed in November last year the indictment for nine crimes related to drug trafficking and money laundering.

After a failed arrest attempt in 2018 in Tamaulipas, the mafia's base of operations, Cárdenas was arrested in the capital in possession of long weapons and several kilos of methamphetamine.

In recent months, the arrests of drug lords have accelerated.

A turn of the rudder in the policy of the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, more focused on containment than on dramatic blows.

In fact, the arrest of three drug traffickers during the past week alone was exhibited at the president's daily morning press conference, with the presence of the Defense and Security authorities.

A staging more typical of previous governments, more likely to get their chests out of each blow to the drug trafficker.

El Contador

is the nephew of Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, the historic leader of the Gulf cartel, who, among other macabre milestones, was responsible for designing a body of assassins made up of elite deserters from the Army.

That special group, Los Zetas, would end up separating from the parent organization to open one of the bloodiest wars between mafias experienced in Mexico during the last years of the first decade of the 2000s.

If the extradition is successful, Cárdenas will share a fate with his nephew, who has been serving a sentence since 2010 in the maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado.

According to the statement from the US Department of Justice, Cárdenas became head of the organization in 2015, after the arrest of Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sánchez,

, pending sentencing in the same Texas court.

The charges against

include the distribution of methamphetamine, fentanyl and cocaine in the United States.

The sentence could carry life in prison and a $10 million fine.

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