Mexico arrests drug lord Caro Quintero, wanted for killing U.S. agent

By Lizbeth Diaz and Drazen Jorgic

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -In a serious win for Mexican and U.S. legislation enforcement, Mexico’s Navy stated on Friday it had captured infamous drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, convicted for the homicide and torture of a U.S. anti-narcotics agent in 1985.

The kingpin rose to prominence as a co-founder of the Guadalajara Cartel, one in all Latin America’s strongest drug trafficking organizations in the course of the Eighties, and had been among the many most prized targets for U.S. officers.

The U.S. authorities hailed the arrest, and stated it might waste no time in requesting his extradition. “That is enormous,” White Home senior Latin America adviser Juan Gonzalez stated on Twitter.

The Mexican Navy stated in an announcement Caro Quintero was caught within the municipality of Choix within the northwestern state of Sinaloa, one in all Mexico’s drug-trafficking heartlands.

He was present in shrub land by a military-trained feminine bloodhound named Max, the Navy stated.

The arrest in San Simon, Choix, comes after strain from america, in response to a Mexican official, and the identical week that President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador met with U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington.

Caro Quintero spent 28 years in jail for the brutal homicide of former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, probably the most infamous killings in Mexico’s bloody narco wars. The occasions, dramatized within the 2018 Netflix sequence “Narcos: Mexico,” led to a nadir in U.S.-Mexico co-operation in a five-decade “battle on medicine.”

Caro Quintero has beforehand denied involvement within the killing of Camarena. He was launched in 2013 on a technicality by a Mexican choose, embarrassing the earlier authorities.

He rapidly went underground and returned to trafficking as a part of the Sinaloa Cartel, in response to U.S. officers, who put him on the FBI’s High 10 most needed fugitives checklist and put a $20 million bounty on his head, a report for a drug trafficker.

Final yr, he misplaced a closing enchantment towards extradition to america. He might be extradited as rapidly as potential, one other Mexican official stated.

“It’s most likely probably the most essential captures of the final decade by way of significance to the DEA,” stated Mike Vigil, the DEA’s former chief of worldwide operations.

U.S. Lawyer Basic Merrick Garland stated he would search Caro Quintero’s quick extradition.

“There isn’t any hiding place for anybody who kidnaps, tortures, and murders American legislation enforcement. We’re deeply grateful to Mexican authorities for his or her seize and arrest of Rafael Caro-Quintero,” Garland stated in an announcement.

Whereas the 69-year-old Caro Quintero is now not thought of a serious participant in worldwide drug trafficking, the symbolic impression of his seize is important.

For Mexican safety professional Alejandro Hope, the arrest pointed to vital cooperation between america and Mexico regardless of latest clashes over safety. “The sort of seize is unthinkable with out the participation of the DEA,” he stated.

Mexico’s unwillingness to extradite Caro Quintero to america earlier than his launch from jail had been a supply of stress between the 2 international locations. A U.S. official stated Washington was very desirous to have him extradited.

“It will hopefully begin to mend the frayed relationship between america and Mexico by way of combating drug trafficking,” stated former DEA official Vigil.

In its assertion, the Navy stated 14 of its personnel had died after a Black Hawk helicopter crashed within the metropolis of Los Mochis, Sinaloa, on Friday. The reason for the crash is below investigation, however up to now there was no data indicating the incident was associated to the capo’s arrest, the Navy stated.

(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz, Drazen Jorgic, Dave Graham and Jackie Botts; Extra reporting by Diego Ore; Writing by Drazen Jorgic and Brendan O’Boyle; Modifying by Stephen Eisenhammer, Rosalba O’Brien and William Mallard)