Mykhaylo Koretskyy was extradited from Curaçao to the U.S. after a lengthy court battle, and will now face trial in New York

WILLEMSTAD, NEW YORK - “Russian Mike”, as he is called, has been extradited from Curacao to New York, where he has pleaded not guilty to smuggling drugs with the Sinaloa Cartel of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

Mykhaylo Koretskyy will use Jeffrey Lichtman, the high-powered lawyer who represented El Chapo at the latter’s Brooklyn trial, despite prosecution concerns that Lichtman, who still represents El Chapo, faces a potential conflict of interest by representing both men.

At a hearing Wednesday in Manhattan, Koretskyy waived any conflict fears, and Judge Paul A. Crotty agreed that the Canadian was, “knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily” using Lichtman’s services.

The joint Canadian-Ukrainian citizen, 44, stands indicted by the Southern District of New York for working with El Chapo between October 2008 and January 2014 to import “five kilograms or more” of cocaine into the U.S.

That four-year-old indictment was unsealed when Koretskyy was arrested in Curacao in January 2018. He was sent to New York in recent days after exhausting all appeals against extradition.

Dutch court documents indicate Koretskyy is suspected of charging cartel leaders, with whom he allegedly had long-running relationships, hundreds of thousands of dollars to run trucks loaded with cocaine from the U.S. into Canada. His routes allegedly ran from L.A. to Buffalo and over the Canadian border.