Comment Mexico City — Mexican marines on Friday arrested fugitive drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, a top U.S. law enforcement target convicted of killing a DEA agent in 1985, an event that changed the U.S. government’s war on drug traffickers, according to Mexican authorities. Caro Quintero, 69, is believed to be one of the architects of the kidnapping, torture and murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena in Mexico. The Guadalajara Cartel co-founder had served 28 years of a 40-year sentence for that murder and other crimes when he was suddenly released before dawn on August 9, 2013, on a judge’s order citing administrative reasons. Since then, the recapture of Caro Quintero has been an obsession for the DEA and a top priority for successive US administrations. In 2020, then-Attorney General William P. Barr urged the Mexican government to track down the drug lord in a reciprocal gesture as the Trump administration dropped drug-trafficking charges against former Defense Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda and sent him back to Mexico , according to several officials. . But Caro Quintero repeatedly escaped as agents closed in. “There are hundreds [DEA] agents who went to Mexico to defend the national security of that country, but also to bring RCQ to justice,” said Terry Cole, a retired DEA agent who served in Mexico. After Caro Quintero was released in 2013, Mexico issued a new warrant for his arrest. Now, the US government is seeking the trafficker’s extradition on cocaine-trafficking charges in New York federal court. US authorities had offered a $20 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Caro Quintero, and he was on the FBI and DEA’s most wanted fugitives lists. His arrest on Friday came days after President Andrés Manuel López Obrador met with President Biden at the White House. Mexico has recently sharply stepped up its anti-drug efforts, particularly against producers of the deadly opioid fentanyl. Mexican marine special forces, with the help of US intelligence, arrested the drug lord near Choix in Sinaloa state, according to two former US officials familiar with the details. One, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss operational details, said Caro Quintero was traveling with a small group of bodyguards and was in a wooded area. Hours after the arrest, a Mexican marine helicopter crashed near Los Mochis, Sinaloa, in an apparent accident, killing several marines, according to Mexican and US officials. The newspaper Reforma, citing unnamed Navy sources, said the marines helped hunt for Caro Quintero. The DEA has long sought to capture the trafficker, but it could also send a strong message to members of Mexico’s criminal underworld, said Manelich Castilla, a former head of Mexico’s federal police. “These living symbols represent an extraordinary relationship with criminals,” he told Milenio TV. The war next door: Conflict in Mexico displaces thousands Camarena, a US Marine and police officer before joining the DEA, was kidnapped on February 7, 1985, in Guadalajara, a major drug-trafficking hub, shocking the US government and sparking a massive manhunt. US customs agents choked traffic at the Mexican border to press for action in the case. The DEA angrily claimed that corrupt Mexican police helped Caro Quintero sneak out of the country. A month after the kidnapping, the bodies of the US narcotics agent and his pilot were found in shallow graves in the state of Michoacán. The murders were attributed to Caro Quintero, a major marijuana producer, and two other drug kingpins — Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo and Ernesto “Don Neto” Fonseca. Caro Quintero was subsequently arrested in Costa Rica and extradited to Mexico. All three men were convicted of the murders. Camarena’s assassination had far-reaching consequences: it led to the disbandment of Mexico’s corruption-plagued federal police and an expanded role for the DEA. “His sacrifice strengthened the department’s budget, its personnel and its political standing,” wrote Benjamin T. Smith in “The Dope,” a history of the Mexican drug trade. “In the late 1980s, he spearheaded America’s growing focus on the international fight against narcotics.” Camarena’s murder and the homicide investigation were chronicled in the Netflix series “Narcos Mexico.” US-Mexico drug cooperation worsened when López Obrador, a longtime leftist, took office in 2018 pledging to end the “war on drugs” and lure young people away from trafficking with social programs. He was an outspoken critic of the strategy used by his predecessors to go after drug cartel leaders. Relations further soured in 2020 when US officials acting at the request of the DEA arrested Cienfuegos at the Los Angeles airport and charged the former defense secretary with drug trafficking. Mexico responded by restricting the ability of DEA agents to work in the country. An American murder suspect fled to Mexico. The Gringo Hunters were waiting. Lately, however, there has been a sharp rise in Mexican fentanyl and methamphetamine labs. This week, at a meeting in Washington, Biden and López Obrador agreed to create a fentanyl task force. Synthetic drugs have become a growing crisis in the United States, where more than 100,000 people overdosed last year, largely due to the growing use of fentanyl. It was unclear whether the timing of Caro Quintero’s arrest was related to the White House meeting. Caro Quintero was once nicknamed the “Godfather” of Mexican drug trafficking. The Sinaloa native co-founded the Guadalajara cartel, a network of allies who dominated drug shipments to the United States in the 1980s and were among the first to work with major Colombian cocaine traffickers. Since his release in 2013, Caro Quintero has kept a low profile but is believed to have close ties to Sinaloa cartel leaders. He is believed to have been operating in the Caborca, Sinaloa region, and is rumored to be in poor health.
