MEXICO CITY – Notorious drug lord Osiel Cárdenas Guillén has been returned to Mexico after serving a U.S. sentence and was quickly re-arrested and sent to a maximum security prison to face Mexican charges.

There had been nervousness about the impending return of Cárdenas Guillén, who once led the feared Gulf cartel in northeastern Mexico before he was arrested and extradited to the United States in 2007.

The U.S. Homeland Security Department confirmed in its social media accounts Monday that Cárdenas Guillén had been returned after serving 14 years in U.S. custody, most of his 25-year U.S. prison sentence. He is a Mexican citizen, so presumably he was deported.

A Mexican federal official who was not authorized to be quoted by name said Cárdenas Guillén had immediately been taken into custody in Mexico on drug, organized crime and money-laundering charges.

The official said Cárdenas Guillén was being held at the country’s top maximum-security Altiplano prison just west of Mexico City.

– The Associated Press