NEW YORK, United States (Reuters) — Mexican cartel kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was brought to a jail in Manhattan late Thursday night (January 19) shortly after landing on U.S. soil.
The druglord is expected to appear in a court in New York on Friday (January 20), after his surprise extradition from Mexico ended a decades-long career in drug-trafficking, dare-devil jail breaks and murder.
A Justice Department spokesman said El Chapo, or Shorty, once one of the world’s most wanted drug lords, was set to appear for an arraignment at the federal court in Brooklyn.
Guzman, 59, arrived in a small jet at Long Island’s MacArthur Airport after nightfall Thursday, from a prison in the city of Juarez in the northern state of Chihuahua, where his Sinaloa cartel crushed the rival Juarez gang.
He was photographed being led off the plane by U.S. officials at MacArthur Airport.
A few hours earlier, he was bundled out of the Mexican cell block with his hands cuffed above his bowed head, Mexican television footage showed.
The drug lord is charged in six separate indictments throughout the United States. He is accused of money laundering and drug trafficking, kidnapping and murder in cities including Chicago, Miami and New York.
Mexico’s court authority said he would be tried in California and Texas, raising the prospect he will appear in courts in the border towns of San Diego and El Paso, which have indictments against him.
Robert Capers, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, will hold a press conference in Brooklyn about the case at 10:00 AM local time