One of America's Most Wanted Drug Dealers Arrested in Mexico
File photo from January 27, 2005 showing members of Mexico's Federal Preventive Police guarding drug trafficker Rafael Caro Quintero.
POLICIA FEDERAL PREVENTIVA/AFP/Archivos
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A historic Mexican drug trafficker, who is among the ten most wanted fugitives by the United States, was arrested on Friday July 15 in Mexico, and Washington has requested his extradition.
Rafael Caro Quintero was arrested by Navy agents in the northern state of Chihuahua, Mexican media said.
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Rafael Caro Quintero, 69, was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list for the kidnapping, torture and murder of US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena , in Mexico in 1985, according to the FBI.
Washington had offered $20 million for his capture.
The US Department of Justice welcomed his arrest on Friday evening, asking that he be extradited to the United States.
“
There is nowhere to hide for those who abduct, torture or murder American law enforcement officials
,” Minister Merrick Garland said in a statement.
The Mexican is one of the founding members of the first large drug cartel, that of Guadalajara (south), at the end of the 1970s. "
He maintains an influential position in the Sinaloa cartel and in the drug trafficking organization Caro-Quintero drug
,” according to the FBI.
Arrested for the first time in 1985, he was tried and sentenced in Mexico to 40 years in prison.
A judge freed him in 2013 over a legal form issue.
Shortly after, the Mexican justice had again called for his capture.
Statement from Attorney General Merrick B. Garland on Capture of Rafael Caro-Quinterohttps://t.co/EmIsetLvvm
— Justice Department (@TheJusticeDept) July 16, 2022
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"
I was at the scene of the crime, it's my only participation
"
The United States had also requested his arrest and extradition for the kidnapping and murder of “Kiki” Camarena as well as for drug trafficking.
“
I did not kidnap him, I did not torture him, I did not kill him
,” he defended himself in an interview from hiding with the weekly
Proceso
in July 2016. “
I I was at the scene of the crime, it is my only participation.
»
Rafael Caro Quintero is one of the main characters in the
Narcos Mexico
series which traces in detail the formation of the Guadalajara Cartel, the DEA's secret war in Mexico, the arrest, torture and murder of Agent Camarena.
The head of the Guadalajara cartel, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, has been in prison since 1989 for the assassination of Kiki Camarena.
He denies his involvement.
(With
AFP
)
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