Mexico handing over one of FBI's 10 Most Wanted suspects to U.S. after arrest
Mexico is handing over one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives to the United States after his arrest in Veracruz, officials said.
Francisco Javier Roman-Bardales is allegedly a key senior leader of MS-13 who has been directing gang activity in the United States, Mexico, and El Salvador, the FBI said.
"This is a major victory both for our law enforcement partners and for a safer America," FBI Director Kash Patel said Tuesday on social media, adding that Roman-Bardales had been extradited to the U.S. on Monday night.
Prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York issued a federal arrest warrant in 2022 for Roman-Bardales over allegations of drug trafficking and various acts of violence against civilians and rival gang members.
The FBI said Roman-Bardales is a senior leader of Mara Salvatrucha, more commonly known as MS-13, which is believed to have been founded as a neighborhood street gang in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s by people fleeing civil war in El Salvador.
Mexican officials said Roman-Bardales, a Salvadoran national, was arrested in Veracruz as a result of international cooperation efforts. He was identified on the Teocelo-Baxtla highway, Mexican officials said, and, after his identity was confirmed, officials took him into custody.
The high-profile arrest by Mexican officials comes less than a month after the Mexican government extradited 29 prisoners to the United States, including drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was wanted for the notorious killing of a U.S. DEA agent Kiki Camarena in 1985.
The recent extraditions come amid simmering tensions over tariffs between the U.S. and Mexico. President Trump has imposed tariffs on the U.S.'s southern neighbor, citing the flow of fentanyl and illegal migrant border crossings among the reasons. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has responded with retaliatory tariffs. Mr. Trump said earlier this month he was pausing some of the 25% tariffs on U.S. imports from Mexico covered under a 2020 trade agreement until April 2.
Mr. Trump announced the delay on social media after a phone call with Sheinbaum, writing, "Our relationship has been a very good one, and we are working hard, together, on the Border, both in terms of stopping Illegal Aliens from entering the United States and, likewise, stopping Fentanyl."
