The US is currently hosting a whole lot more Mexican cartel bosses than it previously did—behind bars, of course. In a lengthy piece for the Wall Street Journal, Steve Fisher and Santiago Pérez look at the 2025 effort that saw 55 cartel leaders quietly removed from Mexican prisons and handed over to American authorities. The extraditions took place in two waves—one in February, one in August—and were covertly coordinated between the two countries. Officials worried that if the kingpins knew what was coming, they'd try to escape, lobby the courts to stop it, or even end up assassinated by their own in order to keep them from informing to US officials in exchange for leniency. A staggering passage from Fisher and Pérez on Mexico's effort to keep the plan under wraps:
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"Weeks before the first man was escorted from his cell, authorities took control of more than a dozen Mexican prisons. ... Prison directors were replaced. Catering companies were switched out to protect the men from poisoning. New camera-surveillance suppliers were hired. Prison custodians were replaced with special forces to avoid anyone tipping off cartel leaders. Some inmates were kept isolated to prevent information-sharing."
The operation was so secretive that one Mexican official says some prisoners believed they were being released due to the government bribes they had been paying, only to find themselves shackled and put on military planes. US officials, for their part, learned about the first wave of arrivals less than 24 hours before the planes touched down. Mexican officials used national security laws to facilitate the extraditions, bypassing normal legal procedures. Fisher and Pérez report the Biden administration actually suggested that legal approach, but the "catalyst" was Trump's presidency and the possibility his administration might have turned to drones or other strikes on fentanyl labs within Mexico. (Read the fascinating full piece here.)
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