Washington had offered $20 million for his capture.
A historic Mexican drug trafficker, who is among the ten most wanted by the United States, was arrested on Friday in Mexico, the Navy Ministry told AFP.
Rafael Caro Quintero was arrested by Navy agents in the northern state of Chihuahua, Mexican media said.
A source at the Ministry of the Navy confirmed the arrest to AFP, refusing to give any details.
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 Kiki Camarena in Mexico in 1985, according to the FBI.
The Mexican was one of the founding members of the first major 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.
"I didn't kill him"
A judge freed him in 2013 over a legal form issue.
The Mexican justice asked for his capture again shortly after.
The United States also requested his recapture and extradition for the kidnapping and assassination of Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, an American agent of Mexican origin, 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 series "Narcos Mexico" which traces in detail the formation of the Guadalajara Cartel, the DEA's secret war in Mexico, the arrest, torture and murder of the agent Camerana.
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.
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