US extradites Chinese-born businessman to Mexico

US authorities extradited on Tuesday Chinese-Mexican businessman Zhenli Ye Gon to Mexico to face drug-related charges, nine years after a whopping $205 million were seized from his mansion in the capital. Salvador Sandoval Silva, a deputy attorney general, showed a video of Ye Gon arriving on a plane and said he would be taken to the Altiplano maximum-security prison near Mexico City.



In March 2007, authorities found $205 million in cash in his luxurious Mexico City home, which was considered the largest-ever seizure of drug-related money. Ye Gon was accused of importing chemicals from China that were used to produce methamphetamine in Mexico, which was then shipped to the United States.

The Shanghai-born man, who had a pharmaceutical company in Mexico, was arrested near Washington in July 2007.

The US charges were dismissed in 2009 but he remained in jail due to the Mexican extradition request, which a judge approved in 2011. He has proclaimed his innocence and sought to fight the extradition, but he lost his appeal.

Zhenli Ye Gon, a businessman accused of working with drug cartels, is escorted by Interpol agents after arriving from the United States on a extradition flight in a hangar belonging to the office of the Attorney General in Mexico City, Mexico, October 18, 2016. PHOTO: REUTERS

Sandoval said Ye Gon was wanted on charges of organized crime, drug-related crimes, possession of illegal weapons and conducting operations with illegal proceeds.



In another US case, the Las Vegas Sands Corp. casino company agreed in 2013 to pay more than $47 million to the US government to avoid charges over its failure to alert the authorities about Ye Gon's gambling at its Venetian-Palazzo hotel complex in Las Vegas. Ye Gon gambled away $126 million in Las Vegas casinos between 2004 and 2007, according to US authorities.