A Texas-born man who prosecutors say rose to the top ranks of a Mexican drug cartel using ruthless violence to defeat rivals and secure control of drug trafficking routes was sentenced Monday by a federal judge in Atlanta to serve nearly five decades in prison. Edgar Valdez Villarreal, known as “La Barbie” because of his light eyes and complexion, was sentenced to serve 49 years and one month and was also ordered to forfeit $192 million, which prosecutors say is a conservative estimate of the value of the cocaine Valdez was responsible for importing into the United States. Valdez, 44, was accused of bringing trucks full of cocaine from Mexico to the eastern United States and shipping millions of dollars in cash back to Mexico.

He was arrested in Mexico in 2010 and was among 13 people extradited to the US from Mexico in September 2015 to face charges. He pleaded guilty in January 2016 to charges of conspiring to import and distribute cocaine, and conspiring to launder money. Valdez was born in Laredo, Texas, on the Mexican border. His father was a nightclub and bar owner, and they lived in a middle-class subdivision populated by border patrol agents, police officers and firefighters.(theguardian)…[+]