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A key Juárez Cartel enforcer in the drug war that claimed thousands of lives in northern Mexico a decade ago was quietly extradited to New Mexico last month to face federal charges stemming from an even older marijuana conspiracy.

Luis Carlos Vazques Barragán, also known as El 20 and El Señor, was the “operational” leader of La Linea, the cartel’s enforcement arm, which was formed by a group of corrupt former Chihuahua state police officers, according to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reports.

He was among eight former high-ranking cartel leaders brought from Mexico to face charges in the United States – nine years after the initial extradition request.

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Vazques was arrested in 2010 in connection with the detonation of a car bomb in Ciudad Juárez that killed a federal police officer, an unidentified mechanic and a doctor who responded to the site of the blast. The incident was widely publicized at the time, and a video of the bomb scene is still on social media.

He has been in a Mexican prison since his arrest 10 days after the bombing.

From 2007 through 2012, the Juárez Cartel was locked in a vicious battle with the Sinaloa Cartel for control of drug traffic through Juárez and the surrounding area that left thousands dead in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.

According to DEA and Mexican law enforcement reports, Vazques was in charge of ordering the deaths of rival gang members and managed the Juárez Cartel operations in the state of Chihuahua.

At the time of his arrest in Mexico, Vazques reported directly to the Cartel’s leader, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes. Carrillo Fuentes was arrested in 2014 and is in a Mexican prison. He has announced his retirement from the cartel business since his arrest, according to Mexican press reports.

A few months before the car bombing in Juárez, a federal grand jury in Albuquerque returned an indictment charging Vazques with conspiracy to distribute more than a ton of marijuana and running a continuing criminal enterprise.

The U.S. government requested Vazques’ extradition in February 2011 to face charges in federal court here.

In early January of this year, the Mexican Attorney General’s Office gathered eight cartel members from different federal prisons and took them to the Toluca International Airport, near Mexico City, where they were handed over to deputy U.S. marshals, who brought them to the United States.

The action was announced in a three-paragraph news release from the Mexican Attorney General’s Office.

Two other former leaders of the Juárez Cartel were among those extradited with Vazques – Pedro “El Sol” Sánchez Arras, who ran the organization’s operations in southern Chihuahua, and Benjamin “El Cachitas” Valeriano Jr., who was responsible for the cartel’s operations in South Texas. They face federal charges in Texas.

Routine business

The continuing criminal enterprise Vazques is charged with overseeing was a pretty routine piece of Juárez Cartel business – a large-scale marijuana-smuggling operation that moved marijuana through New Mexico to cities around the country.

The case dates back to 2005, when DEA agents began investigating an organization shipping marijuana, and involves at least 10 other defendants.

Through the use of wiretaps, DEA and local law enforcement agents intercepted marijuana loads destined for Indianapolis and other locations.

One of the defendants was caught by Albuquerque police with 1,091 pounds of marijuana hidden in the bed of his truck during a traffic stop. Other loads were smaller – in the 300-pound range.

Most of the defendants in the case pleaded guilty and were sentenced by 2010.

But one of the defendants, Mario Talavera, absconded from a federal halfway house in Albuquerque and lived in Mexico for five years until he was arrested and deported back to the United States in 2015.

Talavera, a U.S. citizen who had been living in Juárez, eventually pleaded guilty to marijuana trafficking charges and was sentenced to 6½years in federal prison in 2017.

Another defendant, Cruz “Zacatecas” Lopez-Acevedo, was in Mexico when the Albuquerque case was indicted in 2008.

He was arrested in Mexico and extradited to the U.S. in 2019.

Lopez-Acevedo and Vazques have both pleaded not guilty. Although accused in the same conspiracy, they will be tried separately.

A federal judge ruled the case against Vazques was “complex,” allowing his attorney more time to review the extensive wiretaps and other evidence while preparing a defense.