Felipe Cabrera Sarabia,
“ El Inge ," is accused of being a senior lieutenant in the Sinaloa Cartel has been extradited to the United States , nine years after he was arrested.
For years, U.S. officials had been trying to extradite Cabrera Sarabia, who allegedly had overseen cartel marijuana operations in the mountainous of Durango and part of Chihuahua before his arrest in 2011.
The official announcement of the extradition did not list his full name, but a federal official confirmed it, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Officials said he was considered one of the chief aides to convicted drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán , who was sentenced to life in prison by a U.S. judge.
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He faces drug trafficking charges i n the Northern District of Illinois .
At the time of his arrest, the Mexican Army said Cabrera and three of his brothers began as marijuana growers and that Cabrera rose through the Sinaloa ranks by using violence against his rivals.
A month after his arrest, one of those brothers was killed in a gunfight with soldiers in Durango.
In 2015, the U.S. Treasury Department reported Sarabia was “lieutenant of Zambada García in the Mexican state of Durango, where he controlled large-scale marijuana and poppy cultivation operations and was responsible for the transportation of marijuana and heroin into the United States. Sarabia also obtained ton quantities of cocaine from Zambada García and transported the cocaine to (…) Chicago, Illinois.”
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