Held by the hands and guarded by the Mexican Navy: this was the image of the arrest of drug trafficker Rafael Caro Quintero in Mexico, the DEA's most wanted man, in his native Sinaloa.
After being found in the bushes by a training dog named Max, the 69-year-old capo was transferred to the capital to be admitted to a maximum security prison, pending his extradition to the United States.
The founder of the Guadalajara Cartel was wanted for the 1985 kidnapping and murder of DEA agent Enrique
Kiki
Camarena and for other crimes related to drug trafficking and organized crime.
The US anti-narcotics agency offered a
reward of up to 20 million dollars.
Mexico's Attorney General's Office said in a statement Friday night that Caro Quintero was arrested for
extradition to the United States
and would be held at the Altiplano maximum-security prison, some 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Mexico.
west of Mexico City.
DEA administrator Anne Milgram said the agency "worked in collaboration with Mexican authorities to arrest Rafael Caro Quintero."
[The 'Boss of Bosses' breaks the silence after 32 years in prison for the murder of 'Kiki' Camarena]
The United States attorney general, Merrick Garland, celebrated Quintero's capture and assured that the US government awaits his "immediate extradition."
"We will request his immediate extradition to the United States
so that he can be tried for his crimes in the same justice system that Special Agent Camarena died defending," Garland said.
Rafael Caro Quintero is transferred to the Altiplano prison and the US assures that it will request his extradition
July 16, 202200:35
What to expect after arrest
The operation took place days after the meeting in Washington DC between the president of Mexico and the president of the United States, Joe Biden.
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“It seems to me that in the talks of the private conversations between President Joe Biden and Andrés Manuel they again agreed to
hand over high-profile drug traffickers,
which had been suspended,” security analyst David Saucedo told The Associated Press news agency. .
The cooperation between the DEA and the Mexican Navy achieved important captures in previous administrations, but not with the Government of López Obrador, Saucedo said.
Both presidents face domestic pressure to do more against drug lords.
With the arrest of Caro Quintero, "there is already the capture of drug traffickers and I think that was what was needed," added Saucedo.
Rafael Caro Quintero after his arrest by the Mexican Navy in Choix, Sinaloa, on July 15, 2022. Mexican Navy
Samuel González, who founded the organized crime office at Mexico's Attorney General's Office and is now a security analyst, said
the capture might not have a major effect on the map of organized crime in Mexico,
since Caro Quintero was not as powerful as it was decades ago, and could even generate more violence in territories like Sonora, on the border with the United States.
But he stressed that for the benefit of López Obrador, the arrest is evidence that in his administration "there is no protection from the capos."
González believes that Caro Quintero has been a thorn in the bilateral relationship for a long time, but said that "without a doubt" his capture was the result of recent negotiations in Washington.
"My hope is that with the capture of Caro Quintero many tensions between the DEA and Mexico will be fixed
," Mike Vigil, former head of international operations for the anti-drug agency, told the AP.
Former partner of Rafael Caro Quintero denies having a relationship with the drug trafficker recently captured in Sinaloa
July 16, 202201:43
However, the arrest came at a high cost.
Fourteen Marines were killed and one was injured when a Secretary of the Navy Blackhawk helicopter crashed during the operation.
The secretariat said in a statement that it appeared to have been an accident and that they are investigating the cause.
Founder of the Guadalajara Cartel, Caro Quintero was one of the main capos in the 1980s and one of the first to ship drugs on a large scale to the United States.
Born on October 3, 1952 in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, cradle of the great Mexican capos, Caro Quintero, who amassed a great fortune, founded his cartel together with Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, alias
Don Neto.
This is why they called the feared Rafael Caro Quintero 'Narco de narcos', recently captured in Mexico
July 15, 202202:25
Caro Quintero blamed Camarena for a raid on a huge marijuana plantation in 1984. The following year, Camarena was kidnapped in Guadalajara, allegedly on Caro Quintero's orders.
His tortured body was found a month later.
He was first captured in Costa Rica in 1985 and was serving a 40-year sentence in Mexico when an appeals court overturned his verdict in 2013. Mexico's Supreme Court upheld the prison sentence, but it was too late: Caro Quintero had already fled.
And in 2018, the FBI added Caro Quintero to its 10 Most Wanted list.
With information from AP and Efe.