Cartel's chief of assassins El Cholo Iván - who was arrested alongside El Chapo is - close to being extradited to US after exhausting appeals in Mexican courts

A former chief enforcer for drug kingpin Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán is close to being extradited to the United States after failing in his appeal to Mexican courts.

Orso 'El Cholo Iván' Gastélum has exhausted all of his efforts in preventing the Mexican government from handing him to federal authorities in the U.S., Infobae reported on Tuesday.

El Cholo Iván was the security chief of El Chapo's Sinaloa Cartel and allegedly oversaw the criminal organization's assassins.

He was captured on January 8, 2016 alongside El Chapo when security forces raided the then-fugitive drug lord's safehouse in the Sinaloa Pacific coast city of Los Mochis, sparking a gun battle that left five cartel members dead and six others arrested.

But while El Chapo was extradited to the United States in 2017 before his conviction on drug charges, El Cholo has remained in prison in Mexico.

El Cholo's defense team had argued that a 'provisional arrest warrant' and extradition arrest order filed by Mexican authorities in March was invalid because the Foreign Relations Ministry had committed administrative mistakes. 

However on October 28, a State of Mexico judge sided with the Mexican officials, and confirmed last month that El Cholo Iván's extradition can proceed.  

Orso 'El Cholo Iván' Gastélum and Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán sit in the back of a police vehicle after they were arrested by Mexican security forces in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, on January 8, 2016, after they escaped the then-fugitive drug lord's hideout home during a raid. El Cholo Iván oversaw the Sinaloa Cartel's assassins

Mexican soldiers escort El Cholo Iván in Mexico City on January 9, 2016, a day after he and El Chapo were arrested

The Department of Justice declined to comment to DailyMail.com about El Cholo Iván's pending extradition and criminal charges.

El Cholo Iván's name came up as part of the evidence presented by federal prosecutors during El Chapo's trial in Brooklyn, New York, before the Sinaloa Cartel co-founded was sentenced to life in prison in July 2019.

In an audio recording of an intercepted phone call from July 2011 that was presented during El Chapo's 2019 trial, the drug lord instructed El Cholo Iván on how to proceed with the handling of captured rivals.  

'Once you have them tied up and such, we'll check it out to make sure we don't execute innocent people,' El Chapo said. 

Orso 'El Cholo Iván' Gastélum is facing extradition to the United States after a Mexican court overturned his request to throw out the U.S. Department of Justice's petition. He commandeered a squad of assassins in Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán's Sinaloa Cartel

Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán , the co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, is serving a life sentence in the United States

El Cholo Iván at any moment could be extradited by the Mexican government to the United States

In another call, El Cholo Iván bragged an encounter with cops, claiming he 'kicked their .' However, El Chapo pleaded for calm.  

'Don't be so harsh, Cholo,' he said. 'Take it easy with the police.'

El Cholo Iván agreed but faulted El Chapo for his actions, telling the narco boss, 'well, you taught us to be a wolf, acting like a wolf, I'm remembering and that is how I like to do it.' 

El Cholo was eventually captured in the same military raid that brought down El Chapo.

Both men fled through a tunnel connected to the home and climbed out of a manhole before they highjacked several vehicles. 

They were arrested during a checkpoint and taken to a local hotel in the outskirts of Los Mochis following rumors that Sinaloa Cartel henchmen were on their way to free them.

Mexican prosecutors had previously charged El Cholo Iván with unlawful possession of a firearm, homicide and the assault soldiers in 2013.

El Cholo Iván was previously arrested in 2005 on charges that included organized crime activity, but fled from a Culiacán, Sinaloa, jail during a party which featured a live band. 

He avoided capture on November 24, 2012 when the army shot and killed his girlfriend, María Flores. The 22-year-old stepped out from a vehicle and fired at the soldiers when they were cornered following an hours-long chase after security forces had raided a Sinaloa Cartel warehouse.

María Flores , a former beauty queen, was shot and killed in November 2012 when she stepped out of a vehicle and fired at soldiers who were attempting to arrest Orso 'El Cholo Iván' Gastélum, who at the time was her boyfriend

El Chapo was  handed a life-sentence in the U.S. in 2019, when he was found guilty of a number of criminal charges relating to his leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel.

He is now serving a life sentence in the ADX Florence supermax prison.

 His sons Ovidio, Jesús Alfredo and Ivan Archivaldo Guzmán, known as 'Los Chapitos' or 'the little Chapos', have reportedly taken over leadership of the cartel since his incarceration.