MEXICO.- A Mexican national considered to be one of the founders of Los Zetas, Jesús Enrique Rejón Aguilar, was extradited by Mexico to the United States, informed the Attorney General's Office.

The Attorney General's Office of Mexico (PGR in Spanish) stated in a press release that Rejón Aguilar had been claimed to be prosecuted by the Federal Court for the District of Columbia, US, for his crimes against health and criminal association.

The Office detailed that in 2006 the US justice authorities opened an investigation about drug trafficking both in their country and in other nations.

The research led them to an organization known as La Compañía that transported large quantities of cocaine and marihuana to be distributed in the United States.

According to the release, Rejón Aguilar was in charge of a number of activities in the organization from the purchase of drugs and coordinating the transportation of shipments of it to the US from foreign countries, to managing the money gained by this transaction.

Rejón Aguilar is also considered a founder of the Zetas, a violent and powerful criminal organization that dates back to 1999 when Mexican Army deserters became the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel, but separated from it in 2010 to form their own organization.

The PGR stated that the detainee, known as "Mamito" o "Caballero" ('knight' or 'gentleman' in Spanish), was kept in the Almoloya de Juárez Prison, in the State of Mexico since September 14 of 2011, when the judge made valid the court order for temporary capture with the purpose of extradition.

"Once the stages of the extradition process were exhausted, the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs dictated the corresponding agreement through which the Mexican Government granted the extradition of the one claimed by the United States Government," stated the release.

The transfer was performed on Tuesday at the international airport of Toluca, State of Mexico, where Federal Ministerial Police delivered Jesús Enrique Rejón Aguilar to agents of the Sheriff's Office and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

After Rejón's arrest last year, the Secretariat of Public Security said that the detainee, for which the DEA offered 5 million dollars, was the "third on command" of the Zetas.

Rejón is allegedly involved in the attack of February 14 of 2011 in San Luis Potosí against two agents of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), one of them, Jaime Zapata, was killed.

He got enrolled in the Mexican Army in 1993 in Campeche, where he was born; in 1996 he was assigned to the Special Forces Airmobile Group and a year later was appointed as an agent of the Federal General Attorney's Office in Tamaulipas, Mexico.

In February of 1999 he deserted the military and joined the "Group of the 14", the founders of the Zetas.

editorial@sandiegored.com

Original Text : EFE Agency

Translation: Karen.balderas@sandiegored.com