Mexican officials extradited the man who allegedly oversaw El Chapo's financial operations to the U.S. over the weekend as the feds continued to turn up the heat on the Sinaloa Cartel.
Jorge Pérez was handed over to U.S. federal agents at Mexico City International Airport on Sunday and flown to Washington, D.C., where he faces multiple charges.
According to the Attorney General's Office of Mexico, Pérez reportedly functioned as the transnational criminal organization's financial officer.
He is accused of overseeing the criminal organization's cash flow and was in charge of trafficking drugs from Latin America to the United States.
His extradition comes as U.S. officials have tightened their squeeze on the Sinaloa Cartel, run by El Chapo, who is being held at a super maximum penitentiary in Florence, Colorado.
Already, U.S. authorities have arrested his wife Emma Coronel, who is being held at a prison in Virginia. Last Wednesday, a San Diego court sentenced Jorge Sánchez, who was accused of building secret drug trafficking tunnels between Mexico and California, to 10 years and one month in prison.
Jorge Pérez was extradited from Mexico to the United States on Sunday. Pérez reportedly was the Sinaloa Cartel's financial officer and also functioned as the middle man between the cartel and other drug trafficking groups in Guatemala and Colombia that sent cocaine shipments to Mexico before they were smuggled across the United States southwestern border. He faces multiple drug trafficking related charges in Washington, D.C.
Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán's Sinaloa Cartel was known for using underground passageways to smuggle drugs from Tijuana, Mexico to San Diego
The Attorney General's Office of Mexico alleges that Pérez also served as a liaison between the Sinaloa Cartel and other drug trafficking groups in Guatemala and Colombia that sent cocaine shipments to Mexico before they were smuggled across the United States southwestern border.
Pérez had been in custody of Mexican authorities following his arrest on May 14, 2016 and was being held at the Altiplano maximum security prison, where El Chapo infamously escaped from through a tunnel built underneath his jail cell bathroom.
He is the second Sinaloa Cartel operative to make headlines over the last week.
Sánchez, who was the architect of several tunnels that were used by the cartel to smuggle marijuana from Tijuana, Mexico to southern California, was sentenced by
