Holy men who met their unholy ends
Extradition is where one jurisdiction delivers a person to another jurisdiction where they have been accused or convicted of committing a crime. Not all countries allow extraditions, and indeed this process has been used throughout history to jump through judicial loopholes. Of course, some cases are more infamous than others.
In this gallery, we look at the most famous extradition cases from around the world. While some of these men and women successfully managed to avoid extradition, others were actually sent to the respective countries to be trialed. Click through for more.
The French-Polish filmmaker fled the US after pleading guilty to unlawful intercourse with a minor in 1977. Polansky avoided being sentenced, and in 1978 he fled to Paris, France.
Polanski has since been a fugitive from the US criminal justice system. He has lived in France, Canada, Israel, Thailand, and Switzerland. Other allegations have been made since then, but despite attempts, the filmmaker has not, thus far, been extradited.
The Mexican drug lord escaped prison twice, but on January 8, 2016, his luck ran out and he was recaptured by Mexican authorities. This time he did not escape extradition to the US.
The former leader of the Sinaloa cartel was extradited on January 19, 2017. "El Chapo" is currently serving a life sentence at the maximum-security prison ADX Florence, in Colorado.
The former National Security Agency (NSA) employee and contractor leaked classified documents about several global surveillance programs run by the agency.
The leak raised a huge wave of concern about individual privacy and national security. Snowden first fled to Hong Kong and then was officially granted asylum in Russia in 2013. The whistleblower remains in exile and, thus far, has avoided extradition.
Julian Assange is the founder of WikiLeaks, a website where classified information was disclosed to the public. Assange was granted political asylum by Ecuador and remained in their UK embassy from 2012 until 2019. The WikiLeaks founder was not only wanted by the US, but he also faced rape allegations in Sweden.
In April 2019, Ecuador revoked the whistleblower's asylum and he was arrested. After a long legal battle, in December 2021 the High Court of Justice ruled that the WikiLeaks founder may be extradited to the US. Assange has since appealed the decision and has not yet been extradited. Julian Assange was released in June 2024 from a UK prison after US plea deal, and now lives in Australia.
Following the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, was arrested in the Bahamas in December 12, 2022.
SBF (as he's known as) was extradited to the US and faced charges on eight counts. On January 3, 2023, he pled not guilty to a number of charges. In November 2024, Bankman-Fried was found guilty on seven charges of fraud and conspiracy in what US authorities have referred to as one of the largest financial frauds in the country's history.
Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was captured in Thailand in 2008 and extradited to the US in 2010. Bout was sentenced to 25 years in prison "for agreeing to provide a staggering number of military-grade weapons to an avowed terrorist organization committed to killing Americans," said prosecutors.
Bout served 14 years in the United States Penitentiary, Marion, but in late 2022 he was released in a prisoner exchange with Russia. The exchange was made with American basketball player Brittney Griner, who was arrested in Russia for possession of cannabis oil.
James Earl Ray was convicted for assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, after which he managed to escape to England.
Ray was arrested at London Heathrow Airport while trying to board a plane and was eventually extradited to the US. The criminal plead guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in prison (from where he briefly escaped in 1977, but was recaptured shortly after). James Earl Ray died in 1998.
The Mexican singer was arrested in 2000 in Brazil and charged with corrupting minors. She was sent to prison, where she got pregnant. Trevi claimed that she had been raped by a prison guard, but DNA tests later proved that the father was indeed her manager, Sergio Andrade.
Trevi's extradition from Brazil to Mexico took place in 2002. In 2004, she released a new album, which sold 100,000 copies in the US alone. Gloria Trevi is known as "The Supreme Diva of Mexican Pop."
In 1977, political activist Joanne Chesimard, best known as Assata Shakur (and godmother to Tupac Shakur), was accused of murdering a New Jersey state trooper. But in 1979, she escaped from prison.
Cuba granted political asylum to Assata Shakur, who is currently on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list (and was the first woman to ever make the list). Despite extradition attempts, Cuba has not returned Shakur to the US.
In 2002, computer hacker Gary McKinnon confessed that he broke into computers at NASA and the Pentagon, in an attempt to find information about UFOs that might have been covered up by the US government.
Extradition to the US was blocked by the then British Home Secretary Theresa May, due to McKinnon's condition. The Scottish hacker has Asperger's syndrome and suffers from depression, and, according to May, "There is such a high risk of him ending his own life that a decision to extradite would be incompatible with his human rights."
Sicilian Mafia member Tommaso Buscetta was first arrested in Brazil in 1972 and was then extradited to Italy. Buscetta fled to Brazil again, and was arrested again in 1983 and extradited in 1985.
Buscetta was the first member of the Sicilian Mafia to turn into an informant. He was a key witness in the largest anti-Mafia trial in history; the Maxi Trial in 1986-87. Buscetta also testified to the Anti-Mafia Commission, linking Italian politicians to the Mafia.
This high-ranking member of the Sinaloa cartel was arrested and extradited to the US before Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. The son of drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada was captured on March 19, 2009.
In February 2010, he was extradited to the US and sentenced to 15 years in prison for drug-trafficking charges. Niebla's prison term was reduced thanks to his cooperation with the authorities.
Radical Islamic cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri fought extradition to the US after being arrested in London in 2004, where he spent eight years in prison.
Abu Hamza al-Masri was eventually extradited to America, where he was trialed and sentenced to life due to his connection to the kidnapping and killing of Western tourists in Yemen, as well as his support of al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists.
Robert Vesco committed one of the biggest financial frauds in history and was wanted for securities fraud, political bribery, and drug trafficking. The American criminal financier fled the country to avoid criminal charges and managed to avoid extradition for the rest of his life.
Vesco lived in a number of countries, including Costa Rica, where he managed to get a law passed protecting him from extradition. This is know as the "Vesco law." He also lived in Nicaragua, Nassau, and Antigua (which he tried to buy). Robert Vesco was arrested in 1995 in Cuba, and reportedly died of lung cancer in November 2007, an event which has been disputed.
The government of the former President of Bolivia Luis García Meza was heavily involved in drug trafficking and corruption. Meza was also accused of human rights violations. Following his sentence in 1993, he fled to Brazil.
Luis García Meza was captured a year later and extradited to Bolivia in 1995, where he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
See also: The history and nefarious fugitives of the FBI's Most Wanted list
The most notorious extradition cases from around the world
From drug lords to whistleblowers
LIFESTYLE Justice
Extradition is where one jurisdiction delivers a person to another jurisdiction where they have been accused or convicted of committing a crime. Not all countries allow extraditions, and indeed this process has been used throughout history to jump through judicial loopholes. Of course, some cases are more infamous than others.
In this gallery, we look at the most famous extradition cases from around the world. While some of these men and women successfully managed to avoid extradition, others were actually sent to the respective countries to be trialed. Click through for more.