Associated Press
MEXICO CITY — Mexico has extradited a former state governor to the United States to face charges of helping smuggle cocaine through Cancun to the U.S., in a high-profile demonstration of the nation's increased willingness to extradite suspects as it battles surging drug violence.
Mario Villanueva, governor of the Caribbean state of Quintana Roo from 1993 to 1999, was in U.S. custody on Sunday, a day after authorities handed him over, Mexico's Attorney General's Office said in a statement.
Meanwhile two young men were found murdered near the Pacific beach city of Zihuatanejo, and federal police in Morelia were searching for attackers who shot and killed an officer while he was eating at a taco stand.
Villanueva is charged in New York federal court with helping the Juarez cartel smuggle hundreds of tons of Colombian cocaine to the U.S.
He is the 326th suspect Mexico has sent to the U.S. under President Felipe Calderon, who stepped up the extraditions as part of increased cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking. But he is the first former governor to be extradited.
Villanueva "gave orders to allow shipments of cocaine to be unloaded and stored in ranches in Quintana Roo, to be later sent to the neighboring country by land or air," the Attorney General's office said.
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