SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
This past week, Mexico transferred 29 prominent cartel figures into U.S. custody. Attorney General Pam Bondi says the Justice Department intends to prosecute them for crimes including drug trafficking, homicide and organized crime. The group of prisoners includes men believed to be leaders, or capos, of some of Mexico's most violent cartels, including Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Cartel. So what does this move tell us about U.S.-Mexico relations when it comes to dealing with illicit drugs? Ioan Grillo is a journalist covering crime and drugs in Mexico City and is author of the book "El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency." Welcome to the show.
IOAN GRILLO: Great to be here.
DETROW: Let's start with this - tell us about some of these nearly 30 cartel leaders who have been handed over to the U.S.
GRILLO: It's really an immense hit on cartels. These are major players - right? - from the former heads of the Zetas. These were people who are accused of being involved in crimes like the mass disappearance of more than 400 people in one town, whose bodies were dissolved in metal barrels. Also among the prisoners is Rafael Caro Quintero, who's accused in the murder of a DEA agent back in the 1980s. And what's amazing about this mass extradition, I mean, this was a - came as a surprise. We were covering, and we got kind of a whiff in the morning something was happening. And then it - we didn't understand the scale - is the Mexican government totally trampled on their extradition processes and their appeals. Normally, there'd be an extradition process, and these things can last years. This was as an express, and they even say it was not quite extradition; it's expulsion. They're trying to find a legal backing for this, which is hard to find convincing.
DETROW: Yeah.
GRILLO: At the same time, not many people are going to go out and bat for the defense of these kind of criminals who have committed these kind of crimes.
DETROW: Is it fair to say from what you've seen so far that there is broad approval then for this action in Mexico City throughout the rest of Mexico?
GRILLO: Yes, I - my sense is - I mean, the president right now has an 80% approval rating, and my sense is that regular people, the broad public, are going to be very supportive of this move. Some of the criticism is coming more from certain - a few journalists who are concerned about the legality of this, some figures involved in human rights or involved in legal proceedings, some lawyers, and this is breaking the law. And that creates a dangerous precedent where whatever these people have done, if you start breaking the law and just expelling them to the United States without an extradition process, then that opens the door to the government doing more things, breaking the law.
DETROW: What does this tell you about what Sheinbaum's broader goals are when it comes to dealing with the U.S., dealing with President Trump right now?
GRILLO: So President Sheinbaum came into power on October 1 and has a massive challenge with President Trump and the threat of tariffs, the threat of military action. And she seems to be handling it very well. She has a pressure at home of not bowing too much to Trump, of not being seen too much of just doing whatever he says. At the same time, she has to handle Trump in a diplomatic way, and we've seen with other leaders, you know, he can be a very hard president to handle. She seems to be doing it very well. I would say we can see very clearly Mexico is making a priority - and it has done this for years - of maintaining that trade relationship because Mexico is the biggest trading partner to the United States. It's bigger than Canada, and it's bigger than China. There's more than, you know, a trillion dollars of trade between the two countries. So maintaining that - now, she's also looking to avoid unilateral military action by the United States and looking more to show we can be a partner in fighting cartels.
There are drones run by the CIA, spy drones, going across Mexico. We've had information of that, but they are currently getting information and giving it to the Mexican security forces who are making raids. The head of the Mexican military said these were used in high-level raids in the state of Sinaloa last week. And some of those people who were arrested, lieutenants of the Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, were involved in the same people of extradition sent to the United States - so with U.S. information from U.S. spy planes in Mexico, captured by the Mexican military and then handed to the U.S. without an extradition process, so really working with the U.S. The tricky thing is, is the U.S. working with the Mexican military and Mexican security services, we've seen time and time again there's corruption. And so you have the U.S. working with people who are, you know, some figures who are working with drug traffickers. But this seems to be that the strategy is pushing and forcing the cartels to reduce the flow of fentanyl and reduce the trafficking or the smuggling of migrants into the United States.
DETROW: That is journalist Ioan Grillo. Thank you so much.
GRILLO: Great to be here. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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