Mexico handing over one of FBI’s 10 Most Wanted suspects to U.S. after arrest

CBS News — Mexico is handing over one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives to the United States after his arrest in Veracruz, officials said.

Francisco Javier Roman-Bardales is allegedly a key senior leader of MS-13 who has been directing gang activity in the United States, Mexico, and El Salvador, the FBI said.

“This is a major victory both for our law enforcement partners and for a safer America,” FBI Director Kash Patel said Tuesday on social media, adding that Roman-Bardales had been extradited to the U.S. on Monday night.

Prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York issued a federal arrest warrant in 2022 for Roman-Bardales over allegations of drug trafficking and various acts of violence against civilians and rival gang members.

The FBI said Roman-Bardales is a senior leader of Mara Salvatrucha, more commonly known as MS-13, which is believed to have been founded as a neighborhood street gang in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s by people fleeing civil war in El Salvador.

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