| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico 
Mexico Begins Extradition of Drug Lord to U.S.
 Reuters
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November 21, 2010
| | Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez | |
Mexico City – Mexico began the process of extraditing Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez, believed to be one of the country's top drug bosses, to the United States on Saturday, the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement.
Valdez, a Texan who is accused of leading a breakaway wing of the Beltran Leyva cartel in a violent struggle for control of smuggling routes, is the highest-ranking suspected drug kingpin captured alive since Mexico's drug war broke out in 2006.
Since his arrest in late August, Valdez has been held in a federal detention center while Mexican officials interrogated him and debated whether he should stand trial in Mexico or be turned over to the United States.
U.S. authorities placed a $2 million bounty on the head of Valdez, dubbed "La Barbie" for his blond hair and blue eyes, and indicted him in Louisiana, where is his accused of masterminding the smuggling of metric tones of cocaine into the United States.
More than 31,000 people have been killed in the fighting between rival drug gangs and security forces since President Felipe Calderon launched his army-led crackdown on the drug trade after taking office in late 2006.
Mexico has enjoyed successes such as the arrest of Valdez and the killing of several top drug gang leaders this year, most recently Ezequiel "Tony Tormenta" Cardenas, the head of the Gulf cartel, but the spiraling violence is unnerving some investors and Washington, which fears the fighting could spill over the border.
(Reporting by Robert Campbell, Editing by Sandra Maler)
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