Infamous drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was behind the murder of a DEA agent in 1985, was captured by Mexican forces on Friday, nearly a decade after escaping a Mexican prison and returning to drug trafficking, the mexican navy.
Caro Quintero was arrested after a sniffer dog named “Max” found him hiding in the bush in San Simón, Sinaloa state, during a joint operation between the Navy and the Attorney General’s Office, the Navy said in a statement. The site was located in the mountains near Sinaloa’s border with the border state of Chihuahua.
The Mexican National Registry of Detentions recorded the time of Caro Quintero’s arrest at noon. There were two arrest warrants against him and a US government extradition request.
Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office said in a statement on Friday that Caro Quintero had been arrested for extradition and was being held in the Altiplano maximum-security prison, 80 kilometers west of Mexico City.
A very brief video clip released by the Navy shows Caro Quintero, face blurred, dressed in jeans, a wet blue shirt and hooded khaki jacket, held in both hands by men wearing camouflage uniforms and carrying firearms.
A Navy Blackhawk helicopter carrying 15 people crashed near the coastal town of Los Mochi during an operation, killing 14 people, the Navy said in a statement. According to available information, he suffered an “accident”, the cause of which has not yet been determined, the statement said.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Twitter that the helicopter crashed shortly before landing, after expressing his support for those trying to capture Caro Quintero. He expressed his condolences to the victims’ families and said the investigation will look into the fact of the accident.
Caro Quintero was released in 2013 after serving 28 years in prison when a court overturned a 40-year sentence for the 1985 kidnapping and murder of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. The brutal murder was at a low point in US-Mexico relations.
Caro Quintero, former leader of the Guadalajara cartel, returned to drug trafficking and started bloody battles in Mexico, near Mexico’s northern border in Sonora.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador insists he is not interested in arresting traffickers and prefers to avoid violence.
But the arrest came days after López Obrador met US President Joe Biden at the White House.
There have been tensions between the Mexican government and the DEA since Mexico passed a law restricting the US agency’s operations. But recently, the new head of the DEA in Mexico received a visa, which US officials cited as a sign of progress in the relationship.
Shortly before Caro Quintero’s arrest on Friday, US Ambassador Ken Salazar told a news conference that there had been progress in security relations.
“I was in meetings with the secretary of state and the security cabinet, all of our agencies, including the new head of the DEA, who was sitting to my right,” Salazar said. “So if we weren’t welcome here in Mexico, this wouldn’t have happened.”
An appeals court overturned Caro Quintero’s conviction in 2013, but the Supreme Court upheld the decision. By then it was too late; Dear Quintero was put on hold.
He was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, with a $20 million reward for his capture through the State Department’s drug bounty program. He was on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list in 2018.
Actor Tenoch Huerta plays Caro Quintero on Netflix Narcos: Mexico, which premiered in November 2018 and focused on the origins of the Mexican drug trade. Michael Peña played Kiki Camarena in the drama series.
Caro Quintero was one of the main suppliers of heroin, cocaine and marijuana to the United States in the late 1970s. She accused Camarena of raiding a marijuana plantation in 1984. In 1985, Camarena was kidnapped in Guadalajara, allegedly on Dear’s orders. Quintero. His tortured body was found a month later.
On Friday night, US Attorney General Merrick Garland expressed the US government’s deep appreciation to Mexican authorities for the arrest of Caro Quintero and expressed condolences to the Mexican military who died in the helicopter crash.
“There is no hiding place for those who kidnap, torture and kill American police officers,” he said in a statement. “Today’s arrest is the culmination of the tireless work by the DEA and its Mexican partners to bring Caro-Quintero to justice for her alleged crimes, including the torture and execution of DEA Special Agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena.” We demand his immediate extradition to the United States so that he can be tried for these crimes in the same justice system where Special Agent Camarena died.
Mike Vigil, the former head of international operations at the DEA, said Caro Quintero had been operating on his own lately, although there were rumors that he had returned to the Sinaloa cartel.
Caro Quintero was from Badiraguato, Sinaloa, the same district as Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, a former leader of the Sinaloa cartel who is now serving a life sentence in the United States. Over time, he became one of the “godfathers” of Mexican drug trafficking.
Vigil said he was surprised by Caro Quintero’s arrest, given López Obrador’s disinterest in going after drug cartel leaders, but added that the DEA will never stop looking for whoever killed the agent.
“We didn’t see much effort [to capture Caro Quintero] In recent years, especially when [López Obrador] He came in and immediately began dismantling much of the infrastructure and bilateral relations between the US and Mexico related to drug trafficking,” Vigil said.
In Sonora, one of the states hardest hit by Caro Quintero’s attempts to regain its territories, there was hope that her arrest would help.
“I think in Sonora, in general, there can be peace and yes, relief for us, because I think the disappearances will decrease,” said Cecilia Duarte, an activist with a group of volunteer seekers in Sonora looking for hidden graves. of the missing. Some activists were threatened and even killed in Sonora amid Caro Quintero’s wars with El Chapo’s sons.
But, said Duarte, Caro Quintero is “only a part of [of the conflict]The conflict is not over.”
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
