ALLEGED CARTEL MEMBERS EXTRADITED TO TEXAS

A suspected Mexican drug lord whose cartel allegedly smuggled more
than 4 tons of cocaine a month over the U.S. border will stand trial
in Texas.

Osiel Cardenas-Guillen, the alleged kingpin of the Gulf Cartel, and
three other alleged drug lords appeared in a Houston court Monday.
Mexican authorities delivered Cardenas-Guillen and 14 other alleged
Mexican drug dealers and criminals to Houston late Friday and early
Saturday, the Drug Enforcement Administration said.

"These extraditions are unprecedented in the history of Mexico," DEA
Administrator Karen Tandy said Monday. "Did we get all of Mexico's
major drug dealers? Not yet. But this past weekend, the U.S. and
Mexico took an enormous leap forward."

Cardenas-Guillen, whose trademark was a gold-plated .45-caliber
pistol, was charged in Texas in December 2000 with drug trafficking
and threatening to kill federal agents, Tandy said.

The indictment alleges Cardenas-Guillen and his cohorts attempted to
kidnap and kill a DEA agent and an FBI agent during a confrontation in
November 1999.

"He killed his way up the ladder to lead the Gulf Cartel," Tandy
said.

The Mexican army captured Cardenas-Guillen in 2003. He continued to
run his cartel from a Mexican maximum-security prison, Deputy Attorney
General Paul McNulty said.

McNulty said the largest-ever Mexican extradition of drug traffickers
demonstrates newly elected Mexican President Felipe Calderon's
commitment to confronting the country's drug gangs.

"We can't say enough about the overall effort going on with the
Calderon administration," McNulty said. "They are demonstrating
courage by taking on these organizations as they have."

Other defendants extradited this weekend included brothers Ismael and
Gilberto Higuera Guerrero, alleged leaders of a cartel operating in
Tijuana; and Gilberto Salinas Doria, who is charged with trafficking
more than 200 tons of cocaine.

"Prosecutors have been working for years to make these cases," McNulty
said.