El Chango Mendez of LFM, with one foot in the USA

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Milenio article

Subject Matter: Jesus 'El Chango' Mendez, La Familia Michoacana
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

A minister of the Supreme Court will ponder of whether or not to deny an amparo, promoted by the leader of the cartel La Familia Michoacana, promoted against the law on International extradition.

Reporter: Rueben Mosso
The ex leader of the La Familia Michoacana cartel, Jesus 'El Chango' Mendez is on the point of being extradited to the USA, after a Minister of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation ponders whether to deny his amparo, promoted by the capo to impugn the law of International extradition.

In a case of protection approval, the case will return to the Primary Collegiate Court in Penal matters  of Mexico City in order to resolve some legal aspects and after conclusion, the PGR could execute the order of extradition.

The Federal District Court of South New York is claiming 'El Chango' Mendez because between 2006 and July of 2011, during his leadership of La Familia, he is associated with distribution in USA territory of cocaine and crystal meth.




In this country he is accused because between 2005 and 21st of June of 2011, he distributed and sold drugs, specifically in Michoacan, Queretaro and Guerrero, carried out payments to authorities for protection bribes, kidnapping, extortion, to enrich his organization.

Mendez Vargas was part of the Cartel del Golfo, where he was one of the principal collaborators, and chief of sicarios in the service of capo Osiel Cardenas Guillen, 'El Mata Amigos', or the friend killer.

Arturo Zaldivar Lelo de Larrea, will present next week the protection of sentence to his counterparts in the First sitting of the Court, in order to negate the amparo of the capo, who claims that articles 33 and 34 of the law of International extradition are not constitutional.

On the 18th of September of 2015, the First Collegiate Court in Penal Matters of the First Circuit, emitted a resolution in that they couldn't rule on the competency of the court on the matters of constitutionality of the articles of statute mentioned, and said there was no existing jurisprudence on in respect of the matter.

Mendez signalled that the article 33 of the law of extradition is unconstitutional because it doesn't establish an ordinary recourse of defence to combat the claimed act, that way, he has used the amparo judgment as an ordinary means of defence; also, he alleges, that its unconstitutional that to concede the suspension, without the extraditable request, without a district judge granting it, is denaturing the amparo proceedings.

In an equal manner, he argues that the article 34 is unconstitutional because 60 days have already passed as required in article 35 of the same law of extradition to the USA. The minister declared that both articles are constitutional and do not violate an adequate defence.

El Chango Mendez was detained in 2011 during an operation of the Federal Police in Aguascalientes, the place where he was hiding from the operations to catch him that had been ordered in Michoacán territory.

Together with the extinct Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, "El Chayo", or "El Mas Loco", who was the ideological leader of La Familia, they were considered two of the narco traffickers with major economic power and support of Police corporations, who started the narco taxes on producers and businessmen of Michoacán.

Original article in Spanish at Milenio