A B.C. man who has been ordered extradited to the United States for allegedly conspiring to money-launder $1 million for a Mexican drug cartel has lost his appeal.

U.S. authorities allege that Ariel Julian Savein, 28, acted as a courier for the drug cartel La Familia when he handed over the money to an undercover cop in Vancouver in April 2010.

Savein handed over three bags containing the funds to the cop in a parking lot of a Rona store.

He told the undercover cop he’d been, “running around for three days doing this s--t” and appeared relieved to have delivered the money, authorities allege.

His arrest came following a drug trafficking and money-laundering investigation that began in San Diego in 2009.

A Drug Enforcement Agency undercover cop posed as a high-level manager of a criminal organization that would for a fee transport tons of cocaine and launder millions in drug proceeds.

From March 2010 to February 2011, 21 money pickups for drug organizations were made, totalling $12.3 million, in the United States, Vancouver and Montreal. The total laundering fees were $683,917. A total of 30 people were arrested and charged.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge ordered that Savein be committed for extradition and in June 2013, the federal justice minister ordered him to surrender himself for extradition.

On appeal, Savein claimed that there was insufficient evidence to extradite him and that the decision was unreasonable and a violation of his rights.

He argued that since he was arrested in Canada, he should be tried in Canada and would face a tough prison sentence of up to 30 years in the United States.

But the federal minister noted the broad scope of the investigation, which had been initiated, conducted and coordinated by U.S. law enforcement, and that charges against Savein had been laid in the U.S.

In her reasons for judgment, B.C. Court of Appeal Justice Risa Levine concluded that the extradition judge had made no errors and the minister’s decision was not an unreasonable one.

“For the reasons given, I would dismiss the appellant’s appeal from committal and his application for judicial review of the order that he be surrendered for extradition to the United States,” said Levine. Her ruling, given orally July 17 but posted for the first time online on Thursday, was agreed to by Justice Nicole Garson and Justice Sunni Stromberg-Stein.