![]() His tortured body was found a month later.Ĭaro Quintero was captured in Costa Rica in 1985 and was serving a 40-year sentence in Mexico when an appeals court overturned his verdict in 2013. The next year, Camarena was kidnapped in Guadalajara, allegedly on orders from Caro Quintero. Caro Quintero was one of the founders of the Guadalajara cartel and according to the DEA was one of the primary suppliers of heroin, cocaine and marijuana to the United States in the late 1970s and 1980s.Ĭaro Quintero had blamed Camarena for a raid on a huge marijuana plantation in 1984. officials expressed condolences for the marines who died.Ĭaro Quintero came from Badiraguato, Sinaloa, the same township as Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the former leader of the Sinaloa cartel, which formed later. Lopez Obrador said that the helicopter that crashed in the coastal city of Los Mochis had been supporting the operation against Caro Quintero. They found Caro Quintero, with help of “Max,” hiding in brush in a place in Sinaloa called San Simon. Mexico's navy and Attorney's General Office led the operation deep in the mountains that straddle the border between Sinaloa and Chihuahua states, many miles from any paved road. ![]() “My hope is that with the capture of Caro Quintero, that that will mend a lot of tensions between the DEA and Mexico”, said Mike Vigil, the DEA's former chief of international operations. government would seek his immediate extradition. “This achievement is a testament to Mexico's determination to bring to justice someone who terrorized and destabilized Mexico during his time in the Guadalajara Cartel and is implicated in the kidnapping, torture and murder of DEA agent Kiki Camarena,” Salazar said in a statement late Friday. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar expressed gratitude for Mexico's capture of the man blamed for killing Camarena - a case that brought a low point in U.S.-Mexico relations. Attorney General Merrick Garland and U.S. “The Americans never stopped pressing for his arrest,” Gonzalez said. Gonzalez believes Caro Quintero has long been a thorn in the bilateral relationship, but said that “without doubt” his capture was fruit of the recent negotiations in Washington. Samuel Gonzalez, who founded the organized crime office in Mexico's Attorney General's Office and now is a security analyst, said the capture may not have a major effect on the map of organized crime in Mexico, as Caro Quintero was not as powerful as decades ago, and it might even generate more violence in territories such as Sonora, at the US border.īut he said that to Lopez Obrador's benefit, the arrest “shows evidence that there's no protection of capos” by his administration. ![]() ![]() With Caro Quintero's arrest, “Narcos are being captured again and I believe that clearly it was what was in fact needed,” Saucedo said. “It seems to me that in the private talks between President Joe Biden and Andres Manuel (Lopez Obrador) they surely agreed to turning over high-profile drug traffickers again, which had been suspended,” Saucedo said.īoth presidents face domestic pressure to do more against drug traffickers. “Today's arrest is the result of years of your blood, sweat, and tears,”Ĭooperation between the DEA and Mexico's marines had led to some of the highest-profile captures during previous administrations, but not under Lopez Obrador, noted security analyst David Saucedo. “Our incredible DEA team in Mexico worked in partnership with Mexican authorities to capture and arrest Rafael Caro Quintero”, she said in a message to the agency late Friday. officials for the torture and murder of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena in 1985. and would be held at the maximum security Altiplano prison about 50 miles west of Mexico City.ĭEA Administrator Anne Milgram celebrated the capture of a man especially despised by U.S. Mexico's Attorney General's Office said in a statement late Friday that Caro Quintero was arrested for extradition to the U.S. The navy said it appeared to have been an accident, with the cause under investigation. The arrest came at a heavy cost: Fourteen Mexican marines died and another was injured when a navy Blackhawk helicopter crashed during the operation. Drug Enforcement Administration - the man allegedly responsible for the murder of a DEA agent more than three decades ago - was in Mexican custody.Ī bloodhound rousted him from the undergrowth as Mexican marines closed in deep in the mountains of his native state of Sinaloa. President Joe Biden met in the White House, the most wanted target of the U.S. Yet on Friday, three days after Lopez Obrador and U.S. The United States' motivation to find infamous drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero was never in doubt - hence the $20 million reward for information leading to his capture - there was less certainty about the commitment of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who had made clear his disinterest in pursuing drug lords. ![]()
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