‘Welcome to America!’ Captured drug lords choose: snitch or suffer

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. MEXICO CITY—Dozens of Mexico’s most dangerous prisoners, cuffed hand and foot, boarded army jets under heavy guard this year, a rogue’s gallery of cartel leaders responsible for smuggling tons of heroin, fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine to insatiable U.S. buyers.

The men were rousted from prisons, where money and corruption provided them with weapons, cocaine, booze, women and phones to run their lucrative underworld empires from behind bars, coordinating drug shipments as well as ordering killings and kidnappings, U.S. and Mexican officials said. The prisoners had no idea of their destination.

“Welcome to America!" said Derek Maltz, interim head of the Drug Enforcement Administration when he greeted the first batch of prisoners as they disembarked nine months ago. A second group arrived in August, a total of 55 men who face charges that could keep them locked in maximum-security prisons for the rest of their lives. The prisoners represent the top echelons of Mexico’s biggest criminal organizations—the Sinaloa, Jalisco New Generation and Zetas cartels.

They include Rafael Caro Quintero, who is charged with killing DEA agent Enrique “Kiki" Camarena in 1985 and has dodged extradition to the U.S. for decades. All are in custody without bail.

U.S. officials expect many of the prisoners will share firsthand knowledge about the operations of Mexico’s underworld—from smuggling secrets and money-laundering operations to the names of officials in government, the military, law-enforcement and finance who are paid to serve the drug-trafficking industry. Cartel leaders in U.S.