The Zetas cartel’s alleged operations man in Spain, Juan Manuel Muñoz Luévano, a.k.a. El Mono (The Monkey), may be extradited into the U.S. where he’s wanted on charges of drug trafficking, illegal possession of weapons and money laundering:
Last October, EL PAÍS revealed that Excel spreadsheets stored on two computers seized at his residence detailed the handover of 59 items of luggage containing millions of euros to Zetas bosses at downtown hotels in Mexico. Accounting records show the money, which totaled €63 million, came from the sale in just six days of 2,100 kilograms of cocaine that the Zetas cartel had shipped into Spain.
Spain will now hand over Muñoz to the US, Spanish news agency EFE reports. US authorities suspect the Mexican citizen of having headed up, from the late 1990s to 2015, a drug trafficking ring with links to the Zetas, and which imported cocaine into the US from Mexico.
The DEA suspects that El Mono used a chain of gas stations he owns in Mexico to launder his drug money.
Last month El País notified Mexican authorities about an order given by Muñoz in Madrid for the assassination in Coahuila of an official at the public prosecutor’s office, but Mexican authorities did not follow up on the information.
In related news, a high-ranking Zeta alleges that he and El Mono paid the former governor of Coahuila, Humberto Moreira, US$2 million for allowing the cartel to operate in the state.
