Extradition Effort in Murder Case Wanes : Courts: Man wanted in hired killing has been held in Guadalajara, but a Mexican court rejected a warrant for him without explanation.

Efforts to extradite Rene Cruz Reynoso, an American who fled to Mexico after he was accused of paying $2,000 to have his landlord killed, appear to have collapsed despite the cooperation of Mexican law enforcement agencies, Los Angeles police said Wednesday.

Detective Andrew Monsue said he had determined that Reynoso was still in jail in Guadalajara on Wednesday morning, but the quashing of a warrant seeking his extradition apparently deprives Mexican authorities of legal grounds for holding him.

“Our concern is that the possibility of corruption in this case is very high,” Monsue said. “Because of the uncharacteristic swiftness with which this court allegedly acted on this extradition request, we strongly suspect some monkey business is going on.”

Reynoso is wanted in connection with the shooting death of Ronald B. Ordin, 59, of Beverly Hills on May 16. Ordin was shot by a passenger on a motorcycle in an incident staged to look like a freeway argument, authorities said.

Ordin had just ordered Reynoso to vacate his shop in Los Angeles’ Central Wholesale Market to allow for earthquake retrofitting, said Ordin’s son, Lance.

Reynoso, 29, vanished shortly after the driver of the motorcycle, Andrew Jackson, 21, of Compton, was arrested and implicated him in the murder-for-hire scheme, Monsue said. Alfredo Chacolla 20, the alleged gunman, is at large and believed to have fled to Mexico as well.

Reynoso, who is also wanted by U.S. authorities for failure to pay $6 million in cigarette taxes, was arrested by Mexican federal police and held on charges of being in the country illegally and working without a permit.

He was found in Guadalajara after his case was aired on the “America’s Most Wanted” television show in November, detectives said.

But the decision to deport him was delayed by his assertion that he was someone else, Monsue said. As a result, the LAPD and the Los Angeles district attorney’s office sought to have him extradited in a warrant served on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Mexico City on April 8.

That process was supposed to take 30 to 60 days, Monsue said. But the American legal attache in Guadalajara was told late Tuesday night in a telephone call from Mexico City that the warrant had been rejected, Monsue said.

“He was given no reason for it, and the Mexican federal police said they didn’t know or couldn’t tell him why it had been denied,” the detective said.

In Los Angeles, Mexican Consulate press attache Martin Torres said he received his latest information on the case last week when the extradition process began.

“The process has been going on with no obstacles of any kind that we know of,” he said, adding that it was impossible to check on more recent developments because government offices are closed for Holy Week.

In Washington, Hui Chenthe Justice Department official in charge of the extradition, declined to comment on the case, saying only that the report from Guadalajara had not been confirmed.

Reynoso, who lived in Downey, is the son of Jose Reynoso, a successful importer and exporter whose company, Reynoso Bros. International, is based in City of Industry, Monsue said.

Lance Ordin, the victim’s son, said Rene Reynoso also dabbled in import-export from Lucky Cash & Carry, his store in the Central Wholesale Market where he sold canned goods by the case.

He said he knew of no motive for his father’s death other than the disagreement with Reynoso over moving his business to another space in the block-long emporium.

But Monsue said that the slaying came after Reynoso suffered a series of business reversals and feared prosecution by the federal government on charges related to the unpaid cigarette taxes.