(Reuters) -Mexico on Saturday extradited to the US Nestor Isidro Perez Salas, or “El Nini,” who headed safety for the sons of ex-Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, in one of many highest profile extraditions lately.

Seen by U.S. anti-narcotics brokers as being among the many most ruthless Mexican drug figures, Perez was detained in November by the Mexican Nationwide Guard within the northwestern metropolis of Culiacan, the Sinaloa Cartel’s heartland.

“We allege El Nini was one of the Sinaloa Cartel’s lead sicarios, or assassins, and was responsible for the murder, torture, and kidnapping of rivals and witnesses who threatened the cartel’s criminal drug trafficking enterprise,” U.S. Lawyer Common Merrick Garland stated in an announcement.

Perez is accused by the US of main the “Ninis,” a violent group of safety personnel working for Ivan Archivaldo Guzman and different sons of jailed former Sinaloa kingpin, El Chapo.

Ivan and three different sons of El Chapo, who emerged from their father’s shadow to move a robust faction of the Sinaloa Cartel generally known as “Los Chapitos,” have change into a few of the most needed targets for U.S. regulation enforcement. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) alleges Los Chapitos are the largest fentanyl traffickers to the US.

Perez, in the meantime, is among the highest-profile extraditions through the presidency of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who assumed energy in December 2018.

In an indication of Perez’s significance to authorities on either side of the border, the DEA chief Anne Milgram despatched an inner memo to company employees praising his extradition.

Milgram, within the memo reviewed by Reuters, described Perez’s Ninis outfit as a violent group that receives military-style coaching and is tasked with “kidnapping, torturing and killing anyone who oppose the Chapitos or anyone who endangers the Chapitos’ fentanyl operation.”

U.S. courts have indicted Perez on a slew of prices in relation to his alleged position on the helm of the Chapitos’ safety equipment, together with cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking conspiracy, possession of machine weapons and witness retaliation.