Drug Kingpin Convicted of Murder DEA Agent Arrested in Mexico #Drug #Kingpin #Convicted #Killing #DEA #Agent #Captured #Mexico Welcome to OLASMEDIA TV NEWSThis is what we have for you today:
MEXICO CITY — A drug lord convicted of orchestrating the torture and murder of a Drug Enforcement Administration agent was imprisoned in northern Mexico on Friday, according to Mexican officials, escalating a case that has long been a source of tension with the United States. States is one step closer to resolution.
The drug lord, Rafael Caro Quintero, was captured in a joint operation involving the Mexican marines and the country’s prosecutor’s office near the city of San Simón in Sinaloa state, Mexican officials said. According to a statement from the Mexican Marines, Mr. Caro Quintero was found hiding in the bushes by a sniffer dog named Max.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said the United States would request his immediate extradition.
Two arrest warrants had been issued for Mr. Caro Quintero, officials said. The former crime boss has been under charges in federal court in Brooklyn on several counts of drug trafficking since 2020, according to court records.
Caro Quintero was convicted of masterminding the 1985 murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena, known as Kiki, and was placed on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List in 2018, after being released in 2013 due to a legal action. technical issue. He has been on the run ever since.
In an action that took US authorities by surprise, Mr. Caro Quintero had served 28 years of his 40-year sentence when he was abruptly released by a judge who ruled he had been wrongly tried in a federal court rather than a state court for the murder. on Mr Camarena.
The torture and murder of Mr. Camarena, who had been working undercover, was considered a turning point in Mexico’s violent war against drug cartels, and has long been a sore point for U.S. law enforcement, as well as a source of friction with Washington.
The brutal murder of Mr. Camarena is considered one of the worst events in DEA history, and Mr. Caro Quintero has long been considered an unfinished business.
“There is no hiding place for anyone who kidnaps, tortures and murders American law enforcement officers,” Mr Garland said in a statement Friday. partner.”
The arrest of the infamous drug lord, who was a founding member of the now-defunct Guadalajara cartel, came just days after Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador met President Biden in Washington.
In a joint statement after the meeting, both leaders said they had “reaffirmed our determination to work together to address the major security challenges affecting our countries, including the challenges of fentanyl, arms trafficking and human smuggling.”
Hours after Mr. Caro Quintero was detained, a Black Hawk helicopter crashed outside the nearby town of Los Mochis, killing 14 Marines on board; however, according to Mexican officials, there is no evidence yet to suggest the two incidents were related.
The capture of Mr. Caro Quintero will likely be seen as a major victory for Mr. López Obrador, who has led one of the bloodiest periods in Mexican history, despite promises to tackle crime and suppress violence.
The arrest also suggests ongoing cooperation between US and Mexican security forces, a relationship that has become increasingly fraught since Mexico passed legislation last year restricting the activities of foreign agents and lifting their diplomatic immunity.
The operation “requires a very smooth exchange of information between the Marines and US agencies,” said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst in Mexico City. “It is a sign that at least at this level, at the level of the agencies, the cooperation continues.”
But despite its symbolic significance, analysts warn that the practical impact of Mr. Caro Quintero’s arrest will be limited, as he was likely no longer a major figure within the Mexican organized crime scene, which has become increasingly fragmented and less centered in recent years. around big cartel bosses.
“In terms of bilateral relations, such as meeting DEA pressure in particular, it’s a big deal,” said Falko Ernst, senior analyst for the International Crisis Group. “But if you look at it from a perspective of what this does to armed conflict on the ground and actually provides solutions to the violence, he was still a player, but not a big piece.”
Within the Mexican drug world, however, Mr. Caro Quintero remains a towering figure. Known as the “narco of narcos,” he was a pioneer in producing and trading massive amounts of drugs into the United States.
According to his indictment in 2020, Mr. Caro Quintero ran a massive human trafficking network that began at least in 1980 and was responsible for the production and export of “multi-ton quantities of heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana, from Mexico to the United States.”
The organization was also responsible for shipping tons of cocaine from South America to the United States, according to the indictment, generating millions of dollars in profits that were then washed back to Mexico.
The indictment also noted that leaders of the Caro Quintero organization employed “sicarios,” or hitmen, who committed numerous acts of violence, including murders, assaults, kidnappings and torture.”
By far the most infamous of those murders was the 1985 murder of Mr. Camarena.
The DEA agent was working undercover in Mexico when he was kidnapped in February of that year. Mr. Caro Quintero had reportedly had some sort of frenzy against the US agency after Mr. Camarena helped uncover a massive $160 million marijuana plantation.
Mr Camarena underwent brutal torture before being killed: a forensic expert said he was killed by blows to the face and head by a blunt object. His mutilated body was found nearly a month later, bound hand and foot and wrapped in plastic bags at a ranch near the city of Guadalajara.
The murder, the first murder of a U.S. agent on Mexican soil since the two countries began working together to fight cartels, sent shockwaves across both sides of the border and helped accelerate the war on drugs.
The murder inspired a “sense of revenge” and a desire “to disrupt the Mexican drug trade in more personal and drastic ways than ever before,” said Mr Ernst, an analyst for the International Crisis Group. “It’s one of the most important events” that helped “influence the whole strategy that was formulated at the time to go after the heads of these organizations.”
Mr. Camarena’s death has also become a touchstone in cartel history, portrayed in multiple TV series, most recently including the hit Netflix show “Narcos: Mexico”. It is also bitterly remembered by the DEA, which named a San Diego office after Mr. Camarena.
The Red Ribbon Week drug prevention campaign was also originally launched as a way to commemorate the fallen cop.
Mr. Caro Quintero initially evaded capture and fled to Costa Rica, where he was later tracked down by US agents. After returning to Mexico, he was tried and convicted of masterminding the 1989 murder of Camarena.
But a judge overturned the conviction in 2013 and released Mr. Caro Quintero, after which he apparently immediately stepped back into the business.
According to his indictment, the cartel leader helped smuggle drugs into the United States several times between 2015 and 2016, including thousands of pounds of cocaine, as well as varying amounts of methamphetamines, marijuana and heroin.