The main killer of the Sinaloa drug cartel. who was arrested Mexican authorities extradited him to the United States last fall to face charges of drug trafficking, firearms trafficking and witness tampering, the Justice Department said Saturday.
Nestor Isidro Perez Salas, also known as “El Nini,” is the leader and commander of a group that provided security for the sons of jailed drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and also assisted in their drug business, federal investigators said. Sons lead the faction known as little Chapoor “Chapitos,” which has been identified as one of the major exporters of the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl to the United States.
Fentanyl is believed to be responsible for approximately 70,000 overdose deaths in the United States each year.
“We allege that El Nini was a key enabler or assassin of the Sinaloa Cartel and was responsible for the murder, torture, and kidnapping of rivals and witnesses who threatened the cartel’s criminal drug trafficking enterprise,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in the report. . news release on Saturday.
Court records do not list an attorney for Perez Salas who could comment on his behalf.
Last year, the Justice Department announced a series of charges against cartel leaders. US Drug Enforcement Administration announced a $3 million reward for the capture of 31-year-old Perez Salas. He was captured in a walled compound in the Sinaloa state capital, Culiacan, last November.
Nini’s nickname is apparently a reference to Mexican slang for “neither nor nor” used to describe young people who neither work nor study.
At the time of his arrest, Mike Vigil, the former director of international operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, called him a “complete psychopath”.
Pérez Salas commanded a security group known as the Ninis, “a particularly brutal group of Chapito security officers,” according to an indictment unsealed last year in New York. The Ninis “have undergone military training in various areas of combat, including urban warfare, specialized weapons and tactics, and sniper skills.”
Authorities say Perez Salas participated in the torture of a Mexican federal agent in 2017. He and others allegedly tortured the man for two hours by inserting a corkscrew into his muscles, tearing it out and placing hot chili peppers into his wounds.
According to the indictment, the Ninis committed horrific acts of violence.
The Ninis took captured rivals to ranches owned by the Chapito family for execution, and some victims were fed—dead or alive—to tigers that the Chapito family raised as pets, the indictment says.