Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said Friday that he will accelerate the extradition of drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to the U.S., a process initially expected to take at least a year.
"The directive that the attorney general's office has been given is to work and speed up this work to make this extradition of this highly dangerous criminal happen as soon as possible," Nieto said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, according to CNN.
The Mexican government had previously refused to extradite Guzman to the U.S. after he was captured in 2014, instead opting to house the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel in a high-security prison. However, after he escaped a second time in July, via a mile-long underground tunnel connected to his cell's shower, Mexican officials apparently changed their minds.
"It was for us, the government, without a doubt a difficult and tense moment when he [El Chapo] was able to escape from prison. ... But the important thing is that we were able to re-apprehend him. The most wanted criminal in Mexico, one of the most wanted in the world, was re-apprehended thanks to an intelligence effort and consistent work of the public security forces in our country," Nieto said.
Guzman, who at one point amassed nearly $4 billion selling drugs, faces an array of drug charges in the U.S. dating back to at least 1995, The New York Times reported.
His attorneys are attempting to block the extradition, which could delay the process in a years-long court battle.
In the meantime, Mexican officials have taken extreme measures to ensure that Guzman is unable to escape for a third time. He's being held in Mexico's Altiplano maximum-security prison, the same one he previously escaped from, but this time around, officials are moving Guzman into a new cell every few hours. The bars and floors have now been reinforced, a prison guard always watches his door and K-9 dogs taste his food to prevent him from poisoning himself, according to Fox News.
