Drug lord Guzman sent to U.S.

Washington — Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was extradited Thursday to the United States to face criminal charges in connection with his violent leadership of the trafficking syndicate known as the Sinaloa Cartel.

Guzman is charged in six indictments throughout the United States.

In a statement, the Justice Department offered its “gratitude’’ to the Mexican government for expediting the transfer.

Guzman, who has escaped Mexican prisons twice and led authorities on a monthslong search in 2015, was flown out of the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas.

Among the U.S. charges lodged against him are conspiracy, organized crime, weapons possession, murder and money laundering.

Despite his ruthless reign, the U.S. has assured the Mexican government that Guzman will not face the prospect of the death penalty, which is not applied in Mexico.

Guzman made headlines in 2015 when he escaped from the maximum security Altiplano federal prison through a milelong tunnel. The escape concluded last January with his arrest following a deadly shootout in Los Mochis, a Mexican coastal city of 250,000.

Guzman’s transfer came in the waning hours of the Obama administration and amid concern about how the election of Donald Trump, whose promise to build a wall along the southern border could strain relations between the U.S. and Mexico.