U.S. Department of Defense
U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey met with Mexican army Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos and Mexican navy Admiral Vidal Francisco Soberón in Washington, D.C., on Monday, July 15. Treviño had been captured hours before the defense cabinet meeting.
First page of the U.S. indictment against Treviño and others.
United States officials have not said whether they will ask to have Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, the captured leader of the Zetas drug gang, extradited to this country. However, members of the Mexican Congress have already begun pushing for his extradition.
Tuesday morning, members of Mexico's minority Green Party told reporters Treviño should be extradited. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration congratulated President Enrique Peña Nieto's administration for Treviño's arrest in a statement Tuesday morning but made no mention of an extradition.
Federal court records show Treviño is wanted in the United States. A lengthy indictment charged Treviño and 32 others in 2008 with an assortment of crimes, from conspiracy to kidnapping, murder, and drug trafficking in the Laredo, Texas, region.
In 2010, a federal judge ordered an arrest warrant against Treviño.
The Mexican Navy captured Treviño in the pre-dawn hours outside Nuevo Laredo on Monday morning. His arrest was unremarkable. He was stopped with an accountant, a bodyguard, several firearms and $2 million in cash.
Hours after Treviño was arrested, Mexico's defense minister and the head of the Mexican Navy had a planned meeting with Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. According to the Department of Defense, they met to "discuss defense matters concerning both countries."
