This morning on “This Week,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) called yesterday’s capture of Mexican cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman a “great victory” for the United States and Mexico, and called for his extradition to the U.S. to face charges.
Guzman was the head of the infamous Sinaloa cartel, which authorities say is the single largest supplier of illegal drugs to the United States and responsible for an estimated 25 percent of the illegal drugs that cross our southern border. Yesterday morning, Mexican authorities, working in part off of information provided by U.S. immigration and drug enforcement officials, arrested Guzman in a beach town 600 miles from Mexico City.
“This is the world’s most notorious drug lord that got taken down,” said McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. “He’s really the godfather, if you will, of the cartels, that has brought – smuggled – so many drugs into the United States, [and] killed so many people in Mexico and around the world.”
McCaul thanked ICE, DEA and Mexican agents for their cooperation in making the arrest.
“To bring him to justice finally, after so many decades, is a great victory,” he said.
Guzman bribed his way out of a Mexican prison 13 years ago. Considering the country’s poor track record with handling him, McCaul said he hopes the drug lord will be extradited to the United States, where he faces multiple indictments as well.
“This is an exceptional case,” he said. “This is the largest, biggest drug lord we’ve ever seen in the world, and therefore I think extradition to the United States, where there were multiple indictments in multiple cities — San Diego, New York, in Texas and Chicago — where we could deal with him in a secure, safe way and bring him to justice.”
But would Mexico ever let him go, considering his alleged role in tens of thousands of murders in the country?
“I think it depends on how much pressure our State Department, quite honestly, and our administration puts on the current administration to do this. I think their preference, again, would be to try him first in the United States,” McCaul added.
