Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday urged the United States to disclose the whereabouts of a infamous drug trafficker whose identify has disappeared from the U.S. jail register.
Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a Mexican-American nicknamed “La Barbie” for his honest complexion, was captured by Mexico in 2010 and extradited to the United States, the place he was sentenced to 49 years in jail.
Media reviews just lately revealed that the previous henchman of the Beltran-Leyva cartel not seems in a search of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ on-line register of inmates.
ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP through Getty Images
“The United States government has to clear it up as soon as possible,” Lopez Obrador advised reporters, including that Mexico was awaiting a response.
“We’re going to continue asking them,” he added, describing the case as “odd” for the reason that trafficker nonetheless had a few years to serve except he struck a cope with the U.S. authorities.
The Bureau of Prisons advised AFP that the Texas-born Valdez “is not currently in the custody” of the U.S. federal company, which may very well be for a number of causes.
“Inmates who were previously in BOP custody and who have not completed their sentence may be outside BOP custody for a period of time for court hearings, medical treatment or for other reasons,” it stated.
“We do not provide specific information on the status of inmates who are not in the custody of the BOP for safety, security, or privacy reasons,” it added.
According to prosecutors, Valdez started his drug trafficking profession in Laredo, Texas, and shortly developed cocaine clients in New Orleans and Memphis. He finally entered right into a relationship with Arturo Beltran-Leyva, who was then related to the Sinaloa Cartel and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in Mexico, prosecutors alleged.
Valdez, prosecutors stated, then started coordinating shipments of cocaine into Mexico utilizing speedboats and airplanes, whereas additionally paying bribes to native legislation enforcement officers. The cocaine was then allegedly transported throughout the border into the U.S.. Prosecutors stated Valdez turned a top-level enforcer for the cartel and coordinated a conflict in opposition to his rivals, the Gulf Cartel and Zetas in Mexico.
Ultimately, DEA brokers had been in a position to construct the case in opposition to Valdez utilizing wiretaps, seizures of over 100 kilograms of cocaine and $4 million of drug proceeds, and witness testimony, prosecutors stated.
When Valdez was sentenced in 2018, the Justice Department said he was “ruthlessly working his way up the ranks of one of Mexico’s most powerful cartels, leaving in his wake countless lives destroyed by drugs and violence.”
