Mexico sends drug lord Caro Quintero and 28 others to the U.S.

MEXICO CITY — Mexico has despatched 29 drug cartel figures, together with drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was behind the killing of a U.S. DEA agent in 1985, to the US because the Trump administration turns up the strain on drug trafficking organizations.

The unprecedented present of safety cooperation comes as high Mexican officers are in Washington making an attempt to go off the Trump administration’s risk of imposing 25% tariffs on all Mexican imports beginning Tuesday.

These despatched to the U.S. Thursday have been introduced from prisons throughout Mexico to board planes at an airport north of Mexico Metropolis that took them to eight U.S. cities, in accordance with the Mexican authorities.

Amongst them have been members of 5 of the six Mexican organized crime teams designated earlier this month by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration as “foreign terrorist organizations.”

A who’s who of Mexican cartels

Apart from Caro Quintero have been cartel leaders, safety chiefs from each factions of the Sinaloa cartel, cartel finance operatives and a person needed in reference to the killing of a North Carolina sheriff’s deputy in 2022.

Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, a former chief of the Juarez drug cartel, primarily based within the border metropolis of Ciudad Juarez, throughout from El Paso, Texas, and brother of drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes, referred to as “The Lord of The Skies,” who died in a botched cosmetic surgery in 1997, was amongst these turned over to the U.S.

In line with prosecutors in each nations, the prisoners despatched to the U.S. Thursday confronted fees associated to drug trafficking and in some instances murder amongst different crimes.

“We will prosecute these criminals to the fullest extent of the law in honor of the brave law enforcement agents who have dedicated their careers — and in some cases, given their lives — to protect innocent people from the scourge of violent cartels,” U.S. Lawyer Normal Pamela Bondi stated in a press release.

Tariffs on Mexican imports looming

The elimination of the drug cartel figures coincided with a go to to Washington by Mexico’s Overseas Affairs Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente and different high financial and army officers, who met with their counterparts, together with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

In change for delaying tariffs, Trump had insisted that Mexico crack down on cartels, unlawful immigration and fentanyl manufacturing, regardless of vital dips in migration and overdoses over the previous yr.

“This is historical, this has really never happened in the history of Mexico,” stated Mike Vigil, former DEA chief of worldwide operations. “This is a huge celebratory thing for the Drug Enforcement Administration.”

A protracted-time DEA goal

Mexico’s shock handover of one of many FBI’s Ten Most Needed Fugitives was weeks within the making.

Caro Quintero had walked free in 2013 after 28 years in jail when a court docket overturned his 40-year sentence for the 1985 kidnapping and killing of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. The brutal homicide marked a low level in U.S.-Mexico relations.

Caro Quintero, the previous chief of the Guadalajara cartel, had since returned to drug trafficking and unleashed bloody turf battles within the northern Mexico border state of Sonora till he was arrested by Mexican forces in 2022.

In January, a nonprofit group representing the Camarena household despatched a letter to the White Home urging the Trump administration to resume longstanding U.S. requests for Mexico to extradite Caro Quintero, in accordance with a replica of the letter offered to The Related Press by an individual accustomed to the household’s outreach.

“His return to the U.S. would give the family much needed closure and serve the best interests of justice,” the letter states.

Stress elevated after Trump threatened imposing stiff commerce tariffs on Mexico and designated a number of Mexican cartels as overseas terrorist organizations, in accordance with an individual on the situation of anonymity to debate the delicate diplomacy that went into Caro Quintero’s elimination.

The appearing head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Derek Maltz, offered the White Home with an inventory of practically 30 Mexican targets needed within the U.S. on felony fees, in accordance with the individual. Caro Quintero, for whose arrest the U.S. had provided a $20 million reward, was primary on that listing, in accordance with the individual.

“This moment is extremely personal for the men and women of DEA who believe Caro Quintero is responsible for the brutal torture and murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena,” Maltz stated Thursday.

The individual stated President Claudia Sheinbaum’s authorities, in a rush to hunt favor with the Trump administration and present itself a robust ally within the battle towards the cartels, bypassed the formalities of the U.S.-Mexico extradition treaty to take away Caro Quintero and the opposite defendants.

Meaning it may doubtlessly enable prosecutors within the U.S. to attempt him for Camarena’s homicide — one thing not contemplated within the current extradition request to face separate drug trafficking fees in a Brooklyn federal court docket.

“If he’s being sent to the U.S. outside of a formal extradition, and if Mexico didn’t place any restrictions, then he can be prosecuted for whatever the U.S. wants,” in accordance with Bonnie Klapper, a former federal narcotics prosecutor in Brooklyn who’s accustomed to the case.

The U.S. had sought the extradition of Caro Quintero shortly after his arrest in 2022. However the request remained caught at Mexico’s overseas ministry for unknown causes as Sheinbaum’s predecessor and political mentor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, severely curtailed Mexican cooperation with DEA to protest undercover U.S. regulation enforcement operations in Mexico focusing on senior political and army officers.

Cartels may reply

Additionally amongst these eliminated have been two leaders of the now defunct Los Zetas cartel, Mexicans Miguel Treviño Morales and his brother Omar Treviño Morales, referred to as Z-40 and Z-42. The brothers have been accused by American authorities of working the successor Northeast Cartel from jail.

The elimination of the Treviño Morales brothers marks the tip of an extended course of that started after the seize in 2013 of Miguel and two years later of his brother, Omar. Mexico’s Lawyer Normal Alejandro Gertz Manero had described the delay as “truly shameful.”

Mexican safety analyst David Saucedo stated that since negotiations with the Trump administration started, he had anticipated the U.S. authorities to demand three issues: a rise in drug seizures, arrests of high-profile drug trafficking suspects and the handing over of drug traffickers lengthy focused by the U.S. for extradition.

He referred to as Thursday’s removals “an important concession” by Mexico’s authorities to the US.

The choice additionally threatens to upend an unwritten understanding — with notable exceptions — that Mexican drug lords would serve sentences in Mexican prisons the place they have been usually ready proceed to run their illicit companies, Saucedo stated.

“There will surely be a furious reaction by drug trafficking groups against the Mexican state,” he stated.