Uruguay extradites Jalisco cartel leader’s brother-in-law to US to face drug charges

Uruguay today turned over to the United States a Mexican man wanted on drug and money laundering charges, news media in that country report.

Gerardo Gonzalez Valencia is the brother of Abigael Gonzalez, the former head of the Sinaloa cartel faction known as “Los Cuinis” (The Squirrels). Gonzalez Valencia is also the brother-in-law of Jalisco cartel drug lord Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes.

A 2:45 a.m. Thursday, Uruguayan army and police units extracted Gonzalez Valencia from the Libertad prison in San Jose, Uruguay, and took him to a military airport, El Observador reported.

The prisoner was taken inside a U.S.-registered airplane under the custody of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Uruguay Interior Minister Jorge Larranaga supervised the extradition and allowed the plane to take off at 6:20 a.m., the news website Subrrayando reported. The website published a video of the extradition Thursday morning.

Gonzalez Valencia a month earlier had been transferred to the Libertad prison after the government of Uruguay learned of a plot to spring him from another jail. He also allegedly made death threats against the Minister of the Interior, alleging he was being tortured in jail, the website reported.

Gonzalez Valencia is wanted on drug charges in Washington, D.C., where a federal court ordered the seizure of assets acquired with profits from cocaine and meth sales. He was arrested in Uruguay on money laundering charges in 2016.