American drug kingpin to plead guilty to trafficking charges
The American drug lord, nicknamed ‘La Barbie’, is to plead guilty to drug trafficking charges in a US District Court in Atlanta, his lawyer says.
Defense attorney Wilmer Parker said Tuesday that Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a marijuana dealer who achieved notoriety as an alleged drug kingpin in Mexico, will plead guilty to charges of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, attempt to import or export cocaine, and money laundering.
The US attorney's office for the Northern District of Georgia also confirmed that Valdez will change his plea to guilty at a hearing Wednesday afternoon in an Atlanta courtroom.
Parker said his client did not make an agreement of cooperation with the US government and the sentence he could receive is still unknown.
Edgar made his name in the Mexican drug underworld as a hit man and in the mid-2000s, when two drug cartels, the Zetas and the Sinaloa cartel, fought a long and bloody turf battle over smuggling routes, Valdez was one of the soldiers in those battles.
He was arrested in 2010 along with six other men at a house guarded by cartel gunmen and spent five years in a Mexican prison, where , he shopped around intelligence on other traffickers and corrupt Mexican officials in exchange for a reduced sentence.
He was extradited from Mexico last fall.
The 42-year-old dual American and Mexican citizen is accused of smuggling 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of cocaine across the border at Laredo, Texas, every week for much of 2005.
He is expected to face a maximum sentence of life without parole and "There's no plea agreement," Parker said.
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