FALCON POWERS – A top Mexican cartel member known as ‘El Nini,’ who was one of America’s most-wanted criminals for his alleged role in the fentanyl trade, was extradited to the United States Saturday.
Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas “was one of the Sinaloa cartel’s lead sicarios, or assassins, and was responsible for the murder, torture, and kidnapping of rivals and witnesses who threatened the cartel’s criminal drug trafficking enterprise,” according to a statement released by the US Attorney General Merrick Garland’s office.
The Department of Justice also alleges Pérez Salas was involved in the “production and sale of fentanyl” in the United States.
Pérez Salas was charged in the US with cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and witness retaliation in February 2021.
The US State Department offered a reward of up to $3 million for information leading to his arrest and he was detained in Mexico in November of last year in an operation that earned the praise of US President Joe Biden.
In a speech following El Nini’s capture, Biden described him as “one of Mexico’s and the United States’ most-wanted criminals” for his roles in “perpetrating violence and illicit fentanyl trafficking into the United States.”
According to the State Department, Pérez Salas worked directly with Oscar Noé Medina González, a subordinate of Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, one of the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was sentenced to prison in the US in 2019.
The State Department also said Pérez Salas was responsible for the security apparatus of Los Chapitos, a faction of the Sinaloa cartel.
He is accused of being one of the commanders of the “Ninis” cell, described as a “particularly violent” group of security personnel for Los Chapitos.
“I am grateful to our Mexican government counterparts for their extraordinary efforts in apprehending and extraditing El Nini,” Garland said in the statement.
“The Justice Department will continue to go after the cartels responsible for flooding our communities with fentanyl and other drugs.”
