Mexico Says It's Nabbed El Chapo's Money Man 
 
 (CN) - Mexican officials on Sunday said they have arrested the top money launderer for El Chapo Guzman, who moved hundreds of millions of dollars a year through money exchange houses, and are holding him for extradition to the United States. 
 
 Juan Manuel Álvarez Inzunza, 34, was arrested in Oaxaca, the Mexico City-based Reforma newspaper Reforma reported Sunday. The newspaper did not say when Álvarez was arrested. It said "elite groups" with the Federal Judicial Police and the Mexican Army nabbed him while he was vacationing in Oaxaca. 
 
 Álvarez, who also used the aliases Erick Tadeo Inzunza Zazueta, Juan Manuel Salas Rojo, and Juan Manuel Tamayo Ibarra, is also known as "King Midas." 
 
 Reforma said he moved $300 million to $400 million a year for Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel through a "net" of businesses and casas de cambio, money exchange houses, primarily in the states of Sinaloa and Jalisco, and also in Tijuana (Baja California), the United States, Panama and Colombia. Reforma said he has been laundering money for the cartel for a decade. 
 
 Álvarez is being held in a federal prison in Mexico City. 
 
 Guzman, who was recaptured in January after breaking out of prison for the second time, is also in prison awaiting extradition to the United States, where he is charged with drug trafficking and murder. He is believed to be one of the world's most powerful drug lords. 
 
 Arrests of top drug lords in Mexico seldom, if ever, reduce drug trafficking. Rather, they tend to set off cartel wars, as top lieutenants and rival cartels fight over the plaza, or territory, that belonged to the arrested chief. ||||| Image copyright Reuters Image caption Guzman is currently awaiting extradition to the United States 
 
 Mexican authorities say they have arrested the top money launderer for the Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman, known as "El Chapo" or "Shorty". 
 
 Juan Manuel Alvarez Inzunza, nicknamed "King Midas", was detained while on holiday in the southern state of Oaxaca. 
 
 Guzman, a former leader of the Sinaloa cartel, is currently awaiting extradition to the United States. 
 
 He was recaptured in January after breaking out of a high-security prison. 
 
 Mr Inzunza is suspected of laundering $300m-$400m a year for the Sinaloa cartel through a network of companies and currency exchange centres. 
 
 A US federal court in Washington had requested Mr Inzunza's arrest and he is likely to be extradited. 
 
 Guzman himself is also facing extradition to the US on charges of drug trafficking in California, and murder in Texas. 
 
 Earlier this month, he asked for the extradition process to progress rapidly so he could receive better treatment in prison. 
 
 Since Guzman's recapture in January, six months after he escaped from prison, he has been subject to a stricter regime.
– Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman needed someone to scrub all of his dirty drug money, and Mexican police say they arrested that man, known as "King Midas," while he was vacationing, the BBC reports. "Groups of elite federal police and the Mexican army arrested Juan Manuel Alvarez Inzunza, nicknamed 'El Rey Midas' ('King Midas'), in Oaxaca," a police statement read, per the AFP. The announcement was made Sunday but the date of the arrest was not given. Inzunza, 34, is suspected of laundering between $300 million to $400 million per year, for an estimated total of more than $4 billion over 10 years' time, through various currency exchange centers and other companies for Guzman's Sinaloa drug cartel. Inzunza's "transactions" were said to take place mostly in the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Jalisco, but also in Tijuana, the US, Panama, and Colombia, Courthouse News Service reports. He's likely to be extradited to the US, as is Guzman.