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Mexico nabs top Sinaloa drug cartel suspect

March 28, 2016

Mexican authorities have arrested a man suspected of being the top money launderer behind Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's Sinaloa drug cartel. He faces possible extradition to the United States.

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Mexiko Juan Manuel Alvarez Inzunza
Image: picture alliance/dpa/Quadratín

Mexican authorities on Sunday arrested Juan Manuel Alvarez Inzunza, also known as "King Midas," accusing him of laundering nearly $4 billion (4.4 billion euros) in drug money over the past decade.

Police said Alvarez Inzunza was arrested without the "need to shoot off firearms and without putting other citizens at risk," while vacationing in the southern state of Oaxaca.

Authorities said the financial operator ran a network of companies and currency exchange centers that laundered between $300 and $400 million per year for the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most powerful drug gangs in the Americas.

He faces possible extradition to the United States.

The arrest comes three months after Guzman was detained after escaping from prison last July.

The drug kingpin has escaped twice from maximum security prisons and also faces possible extradition to the United States.

cw/gsw (AFP, AP)