May.10, 2010, 11:00 am ICT

Mexico City, May 10 (IANS/EFE) A former governor of a Mexican state has been extradited to the US on drug and money laundering charges.

Former Quintana Roo state governor Mario Villanueva Madrid, who was arrested in 2001 on a money laundering conviction, was handed over to US authorities Saturday night.

The former top official had allowed Colombian cocaine bound for the US to pass through Cancun city during his six years in office, the Attorney General’s Office said.

Villanueva, according to prosecutors, received “between $400,000 and $500,000 for each shipment of cocaine that he allowed to move” through Quintana Roo.

Villanueva was governor of Quintana Roo from 1993 to 1999. He was arrested in May 2001 and was later convicted of money laundering and given a six-year prison sentence.

Though he was released in June 2007, he was immediately arrested at the gates of the Reclusorio Norte prison in Mexico City because the US had filed an extradition request.