The Mexican Attorney General’s office will be working as fast as possible to establish the path to extradition, and Chapo could be sent to the United States by mid-year, one of the sources said. However the timing will likely depend on injunctions filed by Guzman’s legal team.

Guzman, boss of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, is wanted by U.S. authorities on a host of criminal charges. His organization has smuggled billions of dollars worth of drugs into the United States and is blamed for thousands of deaths due to addiction and gang violence.

“The objective is to fulfill the extradition request,” one source said.

Juan Pablo Badillo, a lawyer representing Guzman, said on Saturday that Guzman could not be extradited.

“In strict accordance with the constitution, he cannot nor should not be extradited to any foreign country,” Badillo told local television channel Milenio. “Why? Because he is Mexican, and Mexico has wise laws and a fair constitution, and there is absolute confidence in the prisons authority.”

Milenio cited Badillo as saying that Guzman’s team had filed six injunctions against extradition to the United States.

The United States requested Guzman´s extradition in late June, just a couple of weeks before his brazen escape from a maximum security prison through a mile-long tunnel which burrowed right up through the floor of his cell.

The failure to extradite him before his elaborate jailbreak strained relations with the United States.

Sending Guzman to the United States would help allay fears the drug lord could use his massive fortune to bribe prison officials and escape from a Mexican maximum security jail yet again.

Though the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Marshals helped in the recapture, American officials have taken no credit and instead lavished praise on Mexico.

“Criminals like Guzman-Loera are responsible for bringing hundreds of tons of illicit drugs into the United States every year, and are responsible for tremendous amounts of violence and death in our own country and across the world,” the U.S. State Department said on Friday.

For years the world’s most wanted drug lord used tunnels to move tonnes of drugs into the United States and to evade capture – until Mexico’s government got wise to his game.

Six months after a brazen jailbreak worthy of Hollywood, escaping a maximum security prison through the tunnel from his cell, Mexico’s security forces turned the tables on Guzman on Friday.

After tracking Guzman down to a house in Los Mochis, in his native northwestern state of Sinaloa, Mexican Marines chased the cartel leader and his chief assassin through a drain and then nabbed them as he tried to flee by car.

Security forces had identified a tunnel expert in Guzman’s circle who was outfitting houses in Sinaloa, and that helped lead to the drug baron’s capture, Mexico’s Attorney General Arely Gomez said.

“During the confrontation, Guzman Loera managed to escape through the city’s drainage system, which had already been factored into the capture strategy,” Gomez said late on Friday, as Guzman was whisked by helicopter to the same maximum security prison in central Mexico he broke out of in July. Guzman’s arrest is a major boost for President Enrique Pena Nieto, who was highly embarrassed by last year’s jailbreak, Guzman’s second in 15 years.

The dramatic capture followed a six month-long intelligence operation. Gomez said Guzman was almost caught in October, when Marines in a helicopter zeroed in on him near a ranch in the rugged northern state of Durango.

But the kingpin was spied in the company of two women and a young girl, prompting the Marines to hold fire and allowing him to slip their grasp.

The encounter pushed Guzman deeper into Mexico’s notorious “Golden Triangle”, where the bulk of the country’s opium and marijuana are produced, limiting his communications and cutting down his security detail to a small core.

But for reasons that are unclear, El Chapo had by December decided to hide out in cities. The tunnel-builder began outfitting homes across Sinaloa and Sonora.

Authorities caught wind of it and began carefully watching a house in Los Mochis. They spotted unusual activity when a vehicle pulled up before dawn on January 7, and intelligence officials confirmed Guzman was on the property. The raid followed.

Marines formed a cordon around the block on Saturday morning, and said they believed Guzman had been in the property for around 48 hours before the raid was launched.

One local resident, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, said the operation appears to have been triggered after a neighbor complained there were armed men outside his house.

Marine helicopters then hovered over nearby storm drains as they sought to capture Guzman. A dead rat lay beside the mouth of one nearby drain that residents suspect he used in his escape.

After chasing him through a drain and stopping his getaway car, the Marines took Guzman and made an unscheduled stop – waiting for reinforcements at Hotel Doux, a love motel on the outskirts of town that rents out rooms for a few hours at a time.

Guzman also slipped up by pursuing a dream to be immortalized on the silver screen.

“Another important aspect which helped locate him was discovering Guzman’s intention to have a biographical film made. He contacted actresses and producers, which was part of one line of investigation,” Gomez said.

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The 47-year-old son of Gowon was reported to have arrived Nigeria on January 1, after he was released last year on a state pardon granted by President Barack Obama after spending 22 years in jail, according to Naij.com.

Musa was living in the United States with his mother, the late Edith Ike Okongwu, when he was arrested on November 18, 1992 at the age of 23, by agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the United States Customs Service for conspiring to import in excess of one kilogramme of heroin.

He was sentenced to 40 years in prison for smuggling heroin, although Ngonadi protested vehemently through his legal team that he was innocent and was framed.

However, while in the prison, he enrolled in a university and successfully graduated with a degree in law as a prison inmate.

He was also a role model and a legal adviser to all the inmates and carried himself with dignity and was a source of inspiration to co-inmates who had given up on life.

He was reportedly rewarded for his good conduct several times by the prison authorities.

His family, however, did not relent in their efforts to get him out of prison. Calls for his release began to grow louder and President Obama eventually relented by granting him parole.

Ngonadi walked out of Taft Correctional Facility, Bakersfield, California as a free man on November 2, 2015.

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Kashamu, a prominent member of the Peoples’ Democratic Party and Senator-elect for Ogun East, is wanted in the United States for drug related offences.

A Court in Lagos had issued a ruling ordering NDLEA operatives who had laid a siege on Kashamu’s home in Lagos, since the early hours of Saturday, to vacate the politician’s house.

The NDLEA said its operatives placed Kashamu under house arrest after it received a formal extradition request from the U.S.

On Monday, Kashamu failed to appear for the extradition hearing, with his lawyers claiming that the anti-narcotics agency did not have a court warrant for the house arrest.

In addition to the court’s vacation order on Tuesday, the judge also summoned Mohammed Adoke and Ahmadu Giade, the Attorney General of the Federation and the Chairman of the NDLEA respectively, to appear before him at the next adjourned date.

But in a reaction to the vacation order, the NDLEA said it had not received the court order and described media reports of the judge’s decision as “diversionary and inconsequential”.

“The NDLEA does not believe that any court will issue an order preventing a government agency from performing its statutory responsibilities in a lawful manner,” Mitchell Ofoyeju, the agency’s spokesperson said in a statement.

“The agency has therefore refused to be distracted and will continue to maintain presence at the residence. It is advisable that Kashamu respects the law by submitting himself to the due process of the law.

“The NDLEA wishes to reiterate that his rights like that of other citizens shall be respected and the due process of law followed in this case.

“The agency is prepared to further increase her public rating and goodwill in the areas of suspect handling, respect for human rights and the rule of law. We are prepared to explore all legal means in handling this case to a logical conclusion.”

The NDLEA spokesperson insisted that the agency had received a formal request from the United States Government for Mr. Kashamu’s extradition.

He also said that contrary to the claims by Kashamu’s lawyers, that the agency has a provisional Warrant of Arrest on him.

“According to official record, Kashamu has been a target of both the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for over 20 years and was further indicted by the Grand Jury in the Northern District of Illinois, United States on heroin trafficking charges,” Ofoyeju said.

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Officials of the agency had on Saturday stormed the Lekki home of Kashamu, who was allegedly nick-named “God” in the US, and got him restrained therein.

To place Kashamu on house arrest, the agency had disarmed Kashamu’s personal guards manning his gates.

NDLEA in a statement on Sunday, said that, as at the time of his arrest, the agency allowed Kashamu’s legal attorneys – Daniel Onamusi and Barrister Oloyede – and close family members, including his wife and adult daughters, to speak with him and attest to his well-being.

The agency said the house arrest was preparatory to his being extradited to the United States of America, where he would be tried for drug trafficking-related offences.

Giade made these disclosures in a statement issued by the agency’s Head of Public Affairs, Mitchel Ofoyeju.

The NDLEA boss said Kashamu has been a target of both the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for over 20 years.

He said the house arrest is sequel to a formal request for extradition which the agency received from the Embassy of the United States of America pending his arraignment before the Federal High Court on Monday, May 25, 2015.

He said the senator-elect was indicted in the Northern District of Illinois, United States on charges brought against him by ICE.

The statement reads in part, “Kashamu, who U.S. court documents alleged was known in his days as the leader of a prolific heroin trafficking ring based in Chicago, Illinois as “God,” “Daddy,” and “Kasmal,” is wanted to stand trial for charges of conspiracy and importation of controlled substances, namely heroin, into the United States dating back to 1994.

“Kashamu, who holds dual Nigerian/Beninese citizenship, has taken multiple preemptive actions to thwart U.S. extradition efforts such as making fanciful claims that his is a case of mistaken identity, and that his deceased brother is responsible for the crimes he is being sought after in the United States.

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