Gulf lieutenants to face trial in U.S.

BROWNSVILLE - Two purported Gulf Cartel lieutenants could face a federal jury in South Texas as soon as this year, law enforcement officials said Friday.

Rúben Sauceda Rivera and Juan Carlos de la Cruz Reyna were among 10 drug suspects extradited to the United States last week.

Prosecutors allege both men rose to high-ranking positions within the Tamaulipas-based drug trafficking organization under the command of its imprisoned former leader Osiel Cárdenas Guillén.

Sauceda, also known as "El Cacahuate," managed the cartel's finances, payroll and vast real estate holdings throughout the late ‘90s, the Mexican attorney general's office said.

He was initially arrested in 2002 during a sting operation that netted 18 Gulf Cartel members and resulted in the seizure of four ranches, seven houses, three planes and three private airstrips used to smuggle drugs.

Mexican authorities found $4 million and eight luxury vehicles in Sauceda's possession at the time of his arrest in Reynosa.

De la Cruz, a former Tamaulipas state police officer and founding member of the Zetas -the cartel's enforcement wing - wore many hats for the drug trafficking organization, authorities said.

At various points in the last decade, he is believed to have worked as a cartel hit man, manager of the group's smuggling routes in Tampico, Tamps., and the main contact point for cocaine shipments coming in from Colombia and Central America.

Investigators also believe he participated in a now infamous 1999 attack on two U.S. federal agents in Matamoros that first brought heavy scrutiny on Cárdenas' organization from north of the border.

Fifteen heavily-armed men surrounded the agents' vehicle that year while a man identified as Cárdenas threatened their lives if they did not hand over an informant working against the group.

Mexican authorities finally caught up to de la Cruz in August 2007 at a restaurant in Mexico City's ritzy Polanco neighborhood.

Both Sauceda and de la Cruz were transferred through the Matamoros airport Wednesday afternoon. They are expected to make their first court appearances in the United States sometime next week.

The men - along with Cárdenas, who was extradited in 2006 - face multiple counts of conspiracy, drug possession, money laundering and assault of a federal agent.

Their trial is currently set for Sept. 8 but could be pushed back due to the massive volume of evidence collected in their case.

Although all three were indicted in Brownsville, U.S District Judge Hilda Tagle moved Cárdenas' trial to Houston for security reasons. It remains unclear which city will host court proceedings for Sauceda and de la Cruz.

Mexico extradited 95 suspects to the United States in 2008 as part of a strategy to remove top drug leaders from often corrupt prisons in their own country.

The group sent to the U.S. on Wednesday also includes alleged members of the Sinaloa and Tijuana cartels.

"Extradition is one of the most powerful weapons we have to battle drug cartels," said Michele Leonhart, acting chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, in a prepared statement. "The cartels fear not only the U.S. justice system, but the strength of our partnership with President (Felipe) Calderón and the Mexican government in this fight."

But Mexican critics have accused the extradition strategy of causing even more drug violence, as warring factions battle to fill power vacuums left in the leaders' absence.

Cárdenas' 2003 arrest and extradition three years later has been blamed for the flare-ups of cartel violence that led to the deaths of more than 500 people in Laredo between 2004 and 2005.

More than 5,600 Mexicans died in drug-related violence in 2008 despite a number of high-profile arrests, according to statistics Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora released late last month.