Rafael Caro Quintero becomes the DEA's most wanted fugitive

Search warrant for drug trafficker Rafael Caro Quintero, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

The leader of the defunct Guadalajara cartel, Rafael Caro Quintero, has become the most wanted fugitive by the DEA, the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

The agency is offering a $ 20 million reward for information that may lead to his capture.

In his file, the DEA adds the warning that Caro Quintero, who is now 68 years old, is armed and dangerous.

The drug trafficker is accused of the kidnapping, torture and murder of federal agent Enrique

Camarena in 1985, as well as murder, criminal association and distribution of marijuana and cocaine.

Mexican Capos as Ismael

Zambada (of the Sinaloa cartel) or the leader of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG), Nemesio Oseguera-Cervantes, alias El Mencho, are also on the priority list.

The current director of the DEA, Ray Donovan, stated in an interview with EL PAÍS that the DEA's fixation with Caro Quintero was already “something personal”.

"The number one priority is Rafael Caro Quintero, he killed one of our agents," he said.

The agency offers a $ 20 million reward, a figure that it already released in 2018 and is the highest in the history of the DEA, for the drug trafficker, who has been missing since 2013 after being released from prison in a controversial ruling of the courts.

The capo was serving a 40-year prison sentence for Camarena's murder.

Kiki Camarena was an undercover DEA agent operating in Mexico in the 1980s.

Justice considered it proven that in 1985 he was kidnapped by the Guadalajara cartel and sadistically tortured, while a doctor kept him alive to prolong his suffering.

When his corpse and that of the pilot Alfredo Zavala —with whom he inspected the drug fields of the drug traffickers— were found, the examination revealed that they had been castrated and buried alive.

In August 2013, when Caro Quintero had served 12 of 40 years in prison, a federal court considered that a defect in form led him to be charged by federal jurisdiction instead of the common jurisdiction.

And he was released.

The controversial sentence was invalidated, but the drug trafficker had already become invisible.

The head of the DEA is clear that he is back in business.

The military intelligence services and the Mexican prosecutor's office maintain that he regrouped his forces and decided to dispute the territory of his old friend Joaquín Guzmán Loera, el Chapo.

For this, Caro Quintero would have focused his activity on the Golden Triangle, one of the largest opium production areas in America, and would have allied himself with the Beltrán Leyva, staunch enemies of the Sinaloa cartel.

From the underground, the Narco de Narcos denied in 2016 that it had returned to trafficking.

In an exculpatory account, in which he appeared as a victim before the weekly

, the fugitive apologized to the DEA and Washington and assured that all he was looking for was to remain in peace.

“I am no longer a danger to society.

I don't want to know anything about drug trafficking.

If I did something wrong, I already paid for it, ”said Caro Quintero, who continues to deny her involvement in Camarena's death.

The murder of Kiki Camarena continues to raise blisters on both sides of the border more than three decades later.

In 2013, three former US intelligence agents (Phil Jordan, former director of the El Paso Intelligence Center; Héctor Berrelles, former DEA agent, and Tosh Plumlee, former CIA pilot), revealed to

and the FOX network that it was the The CIA who "ordered to pick up and torture" Camarena, because he had discovered his links with Mexican drug trafficking.

Then they blamed Caro Quintero for the crime.

The agency defined the accusations as "ridiculous."

The increase in the reward for Caro Quintero comes a few days after the United States dropped the drug trafficking and money laundering charges against General Salvador Cienfuegos so that he can be tried in Mexico.

The former Secretary of Defense with the Government of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018) was arrested in Los Angeles on October 15 and arrived in Mexico 33 days later.

Although there is an investigation against him, the general, for the moment, is awaiting the process in freedom.

The judicialization of Cienfuegos in Mexico was interpreted as a diplomatic achievement of the López Obrador government.

On Friday, the

agency

reported that the Mexican Executive had promised to arrest a drug lord in exchange for bringing Cienfuegos back.

The other most wanted fugitives

The reward for information about El Mencho, the leader of the CJNG cartel, is the second highest the DEA offers: $ 10 million.

The agency, which accuses him of distributing cocaine and marijuana, warns of his dangerousness.

The also known as Señor de los Gallos founded his organization in 2010 and grew in the shadow of others better known as Sinaloa, Los Zetas or Los Caballeros Templarios.

While the security forces focused on the big mafias, the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel gradually took over the holes left by their adversaries.

Today, except in Sinaloa, they are present throughout the Mexican territory.

One of his last shows of force was to deploy high-caliber rifles and fire more than 100 times at the Mexico City police chief on an emblematic street in the capital.

Considered the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, Ismael

Zambada is another of the most wanted drug traffickers by the DEA.

He has never been in jail.

Rumors suggest that this old drug trafficker lives in the open in the mountains of northern Mexico.

His capture, as in his day was that of Chapo, has become a priority objective of the North American authorities.

One of Guzmán Loera's sons, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, is the fourth Mexican in the DEA's priority register.

The list is completed by Colombian Dario Antonio Usuga David, head of the Gulf clan, for whom they offer five million dollars;

the Asian Kenny Jing Ang Chen, for drug and child trafficking;

the Dominican Julio Alex Diaz for distribution of cocaine and heroin, and Rommel Pascua Cipriano, who at only 23 years old is the youngest on the DEA list.