Mexico asked the United States to extradite the suspected mastermind murder of journalist Javier Valdez after he was arrested for drugs, the attorney general said.

Damaso Lopez Serrano — who the Ministry of Justice says he is known as “Mini Face” — is accused of ordering the 2017 killing of Valdez, an award-winning journalist and AFP associate who tracked the narcotics trade.

Alleged former high-ranking member Sinaloa cartel was arrested Friday in Virginia on charges of trafficking fentanyl. Lopez Serrano is the son Damaso Lopez Nunezwho launched a fight for control of the cartel after the arrest of its leader, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

Mexican Attorney General Alejandro Gertz described Lopez Serrano as the “mastermind” behind Valdez’s murder.

“We have already prosecuted the other perpetrators and they are in prison,” he said at the press conference.

Valdez was shot and killed in his car on May 15, 2017, in the capital of Sinaloa, Culiacano, near the offices of his weekly newspaper, Riodosa.

Investigators believe Lopez Serrano ordered the killing because he was angry about information Valdez had released about the internal power struggles of the Sinaloa cartel.

Mexico has made several extradition requests for Lopez Serrano, who surrendered to US authorities in July 2017 on drug-trafficking charges and cooperated in exchange for a reduced sentence. At the time, the US Drug Enforcement Administration, she said Lopez Serrano “is believed to be the highest-ranking Mexican cartel leader to ever surrender to the United States.”

He was released from prison on parole in 2022.

Gertz said Mexico had asked “countless times” to hand over Lopez Serrano, but Washington had refused because he had become a “protected witness” and “gave them a lot of information.”

He expressed hope that with the latest arrest of Lopez Serrano, “there is more than enough reason” for the United States to finally grant Mexico’s request.

Shaken by violence linked to the drug trade, Mexico is one of the world’s the most dangerous countries for journalistsnews advocacy groups say.

Reporters Without Borders says more than 150 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 1994 – and 2022 was one of deadliest year ever for journalists in Mexico, with at least 15 killed.

They are media workers regularly targeted in Mexicooften in direct retaliation for their work covering topics such as corruption and the country’s notoriously violent drug traffickers.

Recently, in October, The attackers killed the journalist whose Facebook news page covered the violent state of Michoacan in western Mexico. Then, less than 24 hours later, a reporter came from an entertainment program in the western city of Colima killed in a restaurant she owned.