The office of U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue in Brooklyn, New York said the defendant Ivan Reyes Arzate was arrested at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he was serving a 40-month prison term after pleading no contest in 2018 to obstruction charges in an Illinois case.
Reyes had been scheduled to be released on Jan. 27 and then deported to Mexico, before a federal grand jury indicted him on Thursday on three conspiracy charges, Donoghue's office said.
A lawyer for the defendant could not immediately be identified.
Reyes is expected to appear later Friday in a Brooklyn courtroom. Each charge carries a 10-year mandatory minimum prison sentence, and prosecutors want Reyes subjected to permanent detention, calling him a "significant flight risk."
According to Donoghue's office, Reyes received bribes from the El Seguimiento 39 cartel in exchange for helping protect its drug trafficking activities.
Multiple cooperating witnesses said other cartels including the Beltran Leyva Organization also paid bribes to Reyes for his assistance, Donoghue's office said.
According to prosecutors, Reyes worked from 2003 to 2016 in the Mexican federal police's Sensitive Investigative Unit, and from 2008 to 2016 was its top officer, making him the main contact for sharing information with U.S. law enforcement.
Prosecutors said Reyes' case was "presumptively related" to their cases in Brooklyn against Guzman and Genaro Garcia Luna, formerly Mexico's top security official, because the facts arose from the same criminal schemes, transactions and events.
Guzman is serving life in prison without parole after being convicted in last year.Garcia Luna pleaded not guilty on Jan. 3 to accepting millions of dollars in bribes to let Guzman's Sinaloa drug cartel operate with impunity.