Rafael Caro Quintero, often referred to as “the narco of narcos,” was arrested by Mexican marines on Friday July 15.
The Mexican drug lord is one of the people the FBI wants to catch the most. He is famous for killing US drug agent Kiki Camarena in 1985. Quintero was on the run for ten years after being released from prison in Mexico and immediately went back to selling drugs. After El Chapo was caught, he is said to be responsible for the Sinaloa cartel.
The news came in the US from a Mexican Navy official who spoke to the Associated Press without giving his name. The Navy’s official statement says a search dog named Max found the 69-year-old drug lord hiding behind a bush in the Sinaloa city of San Simon. It also says the Navy and the Attorney General’s office worked together to do so. According to Mexico’s national arrest record, Caro Quintero was picked up around noon in the mountains near the Sinaloa border. He already had two warrants out for his arrest and the US government wanted him returned to them.
The Navy statement also said that during this operation, a Navy Blackhawk helicopter crashed near the coastal town of Los Mochis. Fourteen people died in the crash. At the moment the event is referred to as an accident. Caro Quintero was placed on the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted Lists in 2018, and the State Department’s Narcotics Rewards Program offered a $20 million reward for his capture. Rafael Caro Quintero’s past is full of violence, drug use and problems with the law. A video with Caro Quintero’s face made unrecognizable is circulating on the Internet. A Vice News reporter, Keegan Hamilton, released the video and wrote, “SEMAR video of Rafael Caro Quintero being arrested by Mexican Marines today.”
History of the Guadalajara Cartel and the Death of Kiki Camarena
Most people know Caro Quintero as one of the founders of the Guadalajara cartel. In the 1970s and 1980s, they brought large amounts of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana from Mexico to the United States. Miguel Angel Félix Gallardo and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo were the other two people who created this huge cartel. The cartel worked with drug trafficking operations in Mexico until Enrique “Kiki” Camarena Salazar, a DEA agent, put him on his list after he and the military raided a 2,500-acre marijuana plantation in 1984.
Caro Quintero immediately blamed Camarena and sent his killers after him. On February 7, 1985, Camarena was kidnapped by one of his men. He was tortured very badly and then killed. Camarena was an undercover agent, and the cartel quickly figured he was giving the DEA information. Camarena and his pilot Alfredo Zavala Avelar were being held hostage at Quintero’s home at 881 Lope de Vega in the Colonia Jardines del Bosque. Camarena was tortured for more than 30 hours to obtain information about drug trafficking politicians.
Arrest of Rafael Caro Quintero
The bodies of Camarena and Avelar were found on March 5, 1985 in the town of La Angostura, Michoacán state. They had been killed and tortured. Camarena’s death was blamed on Caro Quintero and the other two founders of the group. He and his girlfriend went into hiding in Costa Rica for nearly a month before being caught on April 4, 1985. He was sent back to Mexico, where he was sentenced to 40 years in prison. In an unexpected turn of events, he was released on August 9, 2013, when a state court said he was wrongly tried. When he got back, he unleashed all hell in the border state of Sonora in northern Mexico. But the US federal government put pressure on Mexico, so that on August 14 a Mexican federal court issued an arrest warrant for the drug lord. On March 27, 2021, he lost his last chance to stop his deportation to the United States.
Cartagena de Caro Quintero
The Guadalajara Cartel disintegrated and split into the Tijuana Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, and the Juarez Cartel. The Arellano-Felix family founded the Tijuana Cartel, considered one of Mexico’s most dangerous groups. The Sinaloa Cartel is a group of criminals who work together to sell drugs, launder money and more. The Sinaloa Cartel is said to have more power and capabilities than the Colombian Medellin Cartel (led by Pablo Escobar). It was founded by Joaquin Guzman Loera, Hector Palma Salazar, Ismael Zambada García and Juan Jose Esparragoza Moreno. The Juarez Cartel was another violent group that left their victims’ bodies in such bad shape that they could not be identified. They also dealt drugs. The Caborca Cartel, created by Caro Quintero and responsible for selling drugs in the border town of Caborca, is the next group.