Mexico City — Mexico's federal attorney general's office says Friday that accused drug lord Damaso Lopez has been extradited from the border city of Ciudad Juarez to the United States.
Lopez is known by his alias "El Licenciado," a title for college graduates.
He is facing US charges of conspiring to distribute cocaine and commit money laundering and could face life imprisonment if convicted.
Lopez was the right-hand man of drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and helped him escape from a Mexican prison in 2001.
Later, he battled Guzman's son for control of the Sinaloa cartel after the kingpin was captured in 2016.
Lopez was arrested in Mexico City in 2017.
This frame grab from video shows Damaso Lopez, known by the nickname "El Licenciado," escorted by police after his capture at an upscale apartment building on a major boulevard in Mexico City, in 2017. File picture: Jorge Barrera/AP
Mexican officials blame him for violence in the Pacific coast states of Sinaloa and Baja California.