Top suspected Sinaloa drug cartel assassin extradited to US – NBC 7 San Diego

A top Sinaloa drug cartel killer, arrested by Mexican authorities last fall, has been extradited to the United States to face retaliation charges related to drugs, guns and witnesses, the Justice Department announced on Saturday.

Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas, also known as “El Nini”, is the leader and commander of a group that provided security for the sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and also aided them in their drug trafficking, federal investigators said. The sons lead a faction known as the Little Chapos, or “Chapitos,” which has been identified as a leading exporter of the deadly synthetic opioid, fentanyl, to the United States.

Fentanyl is responsible for approximately 70,000 overdose deaths per year in the United States.

“We allege that El Nini was one of the principal sicarios, or assassins, of the Sinaloa cartel, and that he was responsible for the murder, torture and kidnapping of rivals and witnesses who threatened the company criminal drug trafficking cartel,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. press release Saturday.

Court records do not list an attorney for Pérez Salas who could comment on his behalf.

Last year, the Justice Department announced a series of charges against cartel leaders, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration announced a $3 million reward for the capture of 31-year-old Pérez Salas. He was captured at a fortified property in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, last November. .

In a written statement, President Joe Biden thanked Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador for the extradition of Pérez Salas.

“Our governments will continue to work together to combat the fentanyl and synthetic drug epidemic that is killing so many people in our countries and around the world, and to bring to justice the criminals and organizations that produce, smuggle and sell these deadly poisons in our two countries. country,” Biden said.

Nini's nickname apparently refers to Mexican slang for “neither nor,” used to describe young people who neither work nor study.

At the time of his arrest, Mike Vigil, former head of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, called him a “complete psychopath.”

Pérez Salas commanded a security team known as the Ninis, “a particularly violent group of security personnel for the Chapitos,” according to an indictment unsealed last year in New York. The Ninis “received military-style training in multiple areas of combat, including urban warfare, special weapons and tactics, and sniper proficiency.”

Pérez Salas participated in the torture of a Mexican federal agent in 2017, authorities said. He and others allegedly tortured the man for two hours, inserting a corkscrew into his muscles, ripping it out and placing hot peppers in the wounds.

According to the indictment, the Ninis committed horrific acts of violence.

The Ninis would take their captured rivals to ranches owned by the Chapitos to be executed, with some victims being fed – dead or alive – to tigers that the Chapitos kept as pets, the indictment says.