Mexican 'drug queen' to be extradited to US

A panel of Mexican appeal judges have agreed to extradite a suspected drug trafficker known as the “Queen of the Pacific” to the United States, where she faces cocaine-related charges.

The three judges said Sandra Avila Beltran could face trial outside Mexico, but only on one of the two charges prosecutors sought.

Avila cannot be tried for the seizure of more than nine tons of US-bound cocaine off a vessel in Mexico’s western port of Manzanillo because a Mexican judge acquitted her of the charges in December 2010. An appeal court upheld the verdict last August.