US hands over veteran drug capo to Mexico
US immigration authorities delivered Palma to Mexican officials at a border crossing.
MEXICO CITY (AFP) - US authorities turned over veteran drug lord Hector "El Guero" Palma Salazar to Mexico on Wednesday after nine years in US prison and he was promptly detained on murder charges.
The Mexican attorney general’s office said in a statement that the Sinaloa drug cartel honcho, whose nickname means "Blondie," was sought by the Pacific coast state of Nayarit in connection with two homicides.
US immigration authorities delivered Palma, 56, to Mexican officials at a border crossing linking the Texas city of Brownsville and the Mexican city of Matamoros, five days after his release from a prison in California.
The Televisa network showed images of the mustachioed Palma wearing a button-down shirt, pants and a dark baseball cap as a US agent wearing a helmet and a scarf around his face handed him over on the border.
Once in the hands of Mexican officials, Palma longer had handcuffs.
But he was later flown to Mexico City and then transferred by helicopter to the Altiplano maximum-security prison, some 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of the capital, the attorney general’s office said in a statement.
Wife decapitated
Before his arrest in 1995, Palma was a top associate of Sinaloa drug cartel kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who was recaptured in January after escaping from the Altiplano last year.
Guzman, who was returned to Altiplano, was transferred to a prison in Ciudad Juarez, which borders Texas, in May. The foreign ministry has approved Guzman’s extradition to the United States, but it could take months before it is completed, pending court challenges.
Raul Benitez Manaut, a security expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said the government probably fears that Palma will take over for Guzman as the cartel’s leader "if he remains free in Mexico."
"The government’s fear is that he will become the new Sinaloa cartel leader," he said, adding that Palma was known as a "bloodthirsty" criminal.
Palma and imprisoned Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cardenas Guillen "were the first drug trafficking leaders who created armies of hitmen to get rid of enemies," Benitez said.
According to Mexican media, Palma’s wife was murdered by rivals who sent him her severed head inside a box. His two young children were also killed.
Palma was arrested by Mexican authorities in 1995 after his jet crashed. He was extradited north in 2007.
After his extradition, he pled guilty before a US court and was sentenced to 16 years in prison for transporting 50 kilograms of cocaine. He was released last Friday.
The embassy said he was returned to Mexico after serving nine years because of good behavior and the five years he spent in a Mexican prison while waiting for extradition, which counted as time served.