The legal fate of Audias Flores, alias El Jardinero, has been put on hold after a judge decided to grant him a suspension to halt his extradition to the United States, where he is wanted. The Second District Judge in Criminal Matters in the State of Mexico, Azucena Lazalde Íñiguez, has issued the resolution “ex officio and outright” so that the detainee remains in Mexico, in the maximum security prison of Altiplano, while the amparo trial is resolved, according to Milenio this Thursday. He was one of the names considered to succeed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias El Mencho, at the head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and has a provisional arrest warrant from the United States for extradition purposes for crimes of criminal association, drug offenses, and weapons possession, while in Mexico he was wanted for homicide and “other ongoing investigations” by the Attorney General’s Office (FGR).
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El Jardinero was arrested just three days ago, when he was located and identified by the Security Cabinet in El Mirador, a municipality in the interior of Nayarit, very close to the border with Jalisco, through which one of the main drug corridors of the CJNG runs and where El Jardinero had his own operational control area. The surgical operation for his capture took 19 months of planning, analysis, and rehearsals to conclude in just two hours without firing a single bullet. The next day, the federal Secretary of Security, Omar García Harfuch, stated that the detainee was flown to Mexico City, to the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime, which held him in custody until he was sent to the most secure prison in the State of Mexico.
Harfuch pointed out that El Jardinero was wanted in the United States and that his capture was possible thanks to intelligence information collaboration between both countries. Being one of the DEA’s priority targets, it is expected that Flores would join the 92 prisoners Mexico has sent to the United States since last year. However, this Thursday’s judicial decision conditions that step on the resolution of the pending amparo trial in Mexico and recalls that the detainee requested the duplication of the constitutional term, a right that allows extending the deadline to resolve his legal situation up to 144 hours.
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The suspension coincides with the Mexican Government’s refusal to extradite the 10 officials from Sinaloa — including the governor, Rubén Rocha — until the United States Government provides conclusive evidence within the Mexican legislative framework. The president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has questioned the strength of the evidence delivered by Washington to accuse a dozen police officers, prosecutors, politicians, and high-ranking security officials of being associated with the Sinaloa Cartel, to whom they allegedly offered information and protection in exchange for substantial bribes. Until now, the Mexican Government had handed over the detainees requested by its northern neighbor in batches of several dozens as a sign of cooperation; however, this halt — at the most tense moment of bilateral diplomatic relations — is part of a new era of security talks for both countries.
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