Rafael Caro Quintero, 69, was the most wanted man for nine years by the DEA, accused of the torture and murder of agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena in 1985.
The alleged drug trafficker from Sinaloa was arrested that year and spent almost three decades in various maximum security prisons in Mexico. A judge granted him freedom in 2013 before an amparo. In 2015, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation annulled that appeal and ordered his capture again. At the same time, the DEA continued after him.
Washington Post states that the fact that Caro Quintero was free represented an element of rupture in the relationship between the United States and Mexico for almost a decade and refers that the capture of last July 15 it was preceded by twelve failed operations carried out by the governments of both countries.
“US officials said they believe (the operations to arrest Caro) were thwarted by high-level Mexican leaks, an indicator that the Mexican government was protecting him,” the Post notes.
A source for the newspaper said that one of the failed operations occurred in 2015 and was organized by the RCQ Task Force with a dozen Blackhawks. Caro Quintero managed to flee, but a message was left that he was wanted.
From the mountains to an extradition process
The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, reported that it was elements of the Secretary of the Navy who carried out the arrest of Rafael Caro Quintero in Choix, Sinaloa, in the Sierra Madre Occidental, and denied that the DEA had “interference”.
