Mexican drug lord and prison escape artist Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has been extradited to the United States to stand trial in Brooklyn on drug trafficking and murder conspiracy charges, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.

“He is in the air,” a U.S. official said, confirming an account by the Mexican government that it was sending Guzman to face federal prosecution in the United States.

Brooklyn has long been seen as the likely destination for Guzman, and federal prosecutors there last year revised an indictment to drop charges that would make the accused drug lord eligible for the death penalty, which had been a sticking point in negotiations between the U.S. and Mexico.

He is charged in six separate indictments throughout the United States, according to the Justice Department statement.

The extradition comes on President Obama’s last full day in office, before Donald Trump is sworn in Friday.

Guzman, who heads the Sinaloa drug cartel, has sometimes been called the world's wealthiest and most powerful drug trafficker.

In January 2001, he left a high-security Mexican prison, reportedly with help from bribed prison staff.

He ran his expanding drug business as a fugitive for the next 13 years before being captured again in February 2014.

Then in July 2015, he managed to escape from the Altiplano prison outside the capital. Authorities had labeled the prison escape-proof. He used a mile-long tunnel connected to the shower stall in his cell.

He was recaptured last January in the Pacific coastal city of Los Mochis and returned to Altiplano.

In May, he was transferred to another maximum-security prison, Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 9, in the border city of Juarez.

Great Rolling Stone article Hollander, thanks!

I ask everyone, If YOU were president, how would you handle the cartel and El Chapo situation?

I TOTALLY understand that eliminating El Chapo was/is meaningless. There are 1000's of guys willing to step up and pick up the slack.

I SERIOUSLY believe that in order for these guys to be getting the amount of drugs across the borders, there HAS TO BE government officials that are on the take. I don't see any other way to be transporting truck loads of stuff. That tunnel theory is a joke to me. Yes, I believe they exist but not to be transporting the amount of stuff that gets here. Why didn't the El Chapo escape video show us the entire tunnel on video?
He was already out, what the fu*k does it matter?
I believe because there NEVER was a complete tunnel. Yes there was the illusion of a tunnel. They dug the first 50-100 feet on the outside and THEY (gov officials) broke through the shower side.

I seriously believe that El Chapo refused to pay more money to the right people and that is why HE became the ultimate target.
Why aren't they concerned about the other cartel leaders like El Chapo?

Why doesn't the president clean house at the border with people he can trust?

I am sorry, I just DO NOT believe 90% of what the news feeds us and what our government tells us....It is so sad!...We all learn right from wrong in K-12 and then enter the real world and see the adults doing all wrong.

I said my peace!

Wow really. He made trump mad. Should have left him alone there will never be a wall anyway. Let sleeping dogs lay.

Can the cartel really hurt the judge or jury ?
How ? They have guys in ny ? Contacts there ?
Because i can guess it's probably hard for them to reach to ny