Rafael Caro Quintero, after his arrest on July 15 in San Simón (Choix, Sinaloa). Semar (EFE)
The United States Drug Enforcement Agency recruited relatives of Rafael Caro Quintero to achieve his capture on July 15 in Sinaloa, as revealed by their agents to
The Washington Post
.
The DEA (for its acronym in English) worked in the last nine years to surround him and cooperated with the Mexican government in at least 12 attempts to arrest him.
Although the Mexican government has denied that the United States had a fundamental role in his arrest, the agents' comments confirm that the agency made a significant deployment of intelligence to cooperate with the Mexican Navy.
Caro Quintero has been a fugitive since 2013 when, in a controversial court decision, he was released 12 years before serving a 40-year prison sentence for the murder of DEA agent Enrique
Kiki
Camarena.
Quintero had ordered the kidnapping and torture of Camarena after discovering that he had infiltrated the Guadalajara cartel in 1985. After being released from prison, Caro Quintero took refuge in Sinaloa's Golden Triangle and began to set up a new organization that carried his name, as confirmed by the authorities in Mexico.
DEA agents have told the
Post
that after learning that El Narco de Narcos had been released in Mexico, the agency set up a special group to capture him:
RCQ task force
, with the capo's initials leading the mission.
Camarena's murder in the 1980s has always been a personal matter for the agency, which never stopped its efforts to bring the kingpin to justice.
In the offices of the DEA in Mexico, assures the American newspaper, a photo of Kiki Camarena hangs permanently.
"Like the Virgin Mary in the kitchens of Irish homes," said one of the agents.
The story about the latest capture of Caro Quintero is preceded by 12 failed operations in which DEA agents have blamed the Mexican government for the leaks of information that ended up sabotaging them.
The agency took its agents to the field in Sinaloa and also permanently monitored the drug trafficker's son in Guadalajara: Héctor Caro Quintero Elenes.
The scion of the Narco de Narcos was a prominent horseman who led a life of luxury in the most exclusive circles of Guadalajara, while his father hid in tents in the rugged terrain of the Golden Triangle.
The capture of Caro Quintero has been on the diplomatic table between Mexico and the United States in the last decade.
William Barr, US attorney general during the Donald Trump administration (2016-2020), has also told the
Post
that when Mexican general Salvador Cienfuegos was released from accusations of links to drug trafficking in 2021 at a request from the Mexican government , he insisted on the arrest of the drug trafficker as a bargaining chip.
"I made it clear to the Mexicans that catching Caro Quintero was one of our priorities," says Barr.
The latest attempt to capture him has occurred just three days after the visit of the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to the White House.
DEA agents recall that before the successful capture there was a resounding failure in 2021, when in an operation authorized by the Mexican Government, the marines landed in several helicopters in the community of Babunica, in Sinaloa, where the capo is from. .
By the time the marines arrived, Caro Quintero had already fled.
US agents blamed it on a leak from his Mexican counterparts.
Finally, on July 15, they found an opportunity to arrest him again.
The DEA agents assure that they planned the operation for eight months at the hands of the Mexican marines: a raid in the town of San Simón, in the municipality of Choix, in Sinaloa.
There, hidden in the bushes, was the Narco de Narcos.
subscribe here
to the
newsletter
of EL PAÍS México and receive all the informative keys of the current affairs of this country
