US authorities handed over Mexican drug lord Hector "El Guero" Palma Salazar to officials at a border crossing city, after serving almost a decade in an American prison.
Just after 5 p.m. on Wednesday evening, American agents turned over Salazar, who was released from prison in California on June 10, after completing 85 per cent of a 16-year sentence for smuggling 50 kilos of cocaine from Mexico to the US in 1995, Xinhua news agency reported.
The hand over was conducted in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas.
Since then, he was in custody of immigration officials, prior to his extradition.
A Mexican official said that the drug lord was an accomplice of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmon in the Sinaloa Cartel.
Until now, Mexico's prosecutor-general has not ruled on whether Salazar would face new charges in Mexico or would be set free.
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--IANS
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