By Steve Neavling
FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday praised Mexican authorities for capturing and turning over Francisco Javier Román Bardales, an alleged senior leader of the violent MS-13 gang and one of the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” fugitives.
Román Bardales was arrested Monday in the mountains of Veracruz by Mexican soldiers and federal agents. The FBI has accused him of violent crime, drug distribution, and extortion in the Eastern District of New York, the Associated Press reports.
“This is a major victory both for our law enforcement partners and for a safer America,” Patel wrote on social media.
Mexico’s security chief, Omar García Harfuch, credited the arrest to international cooperation. Mexican authorities described the handover as a deportation to the United States.
The arrest follows a series of high-profile extraditions, including 29 cartel figures last month, among them Rafael Caro Quintero, the drug lord convicted of orchestrating the 1985 killing of a U.S. DEA agent.
Mexico has recently ramped up operations against the Sinaloa cartel, a major fentanyl trafficker, as President Claudia Sheinbaum works to demonstrate Mexico’s commitment to security and immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration deported two top MS-13 members to El Salvador over the weekend, along with hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants.
