Significance: Osorio Chong’s denial notwithstanding, the timing of the extraditions on 30 September was eye-catching. They came just as Mexico’s foreign minister, Claudia Ruiz Massieu, was due to meet US Secretary of State John Kerry, for the first time since she assumed her post on 27 August, on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly. US frustration over the escape last July of Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán Loera, the leader of the Sinaloa drug trafficking organisation (DTO), from a maximum security prison, was almost tangible. The frustration was compounded by the fact that not only did the US play a major role in Guzmán’s capture but it also expressly sought his extradition, only to be assured by President Enrique Peña Nieto that he would serve out a prison sentence in Mexico as it would be “unforgivable” if he were allowed to escape again.
End of preview - This article contains approximately 379 words.
Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article
Not a Subscriber?
Choose from one of the following options
