On the Ten Most Wanted List of the FBI, Rafael Caro Quintero stood lonely at the top for years. For most of the fugitive criminals on that well-known list, the American detective is offering $100,000 in tip money. For the Mexican drug lord, that amount was two hundred times higher: $ 20 million for “information leading to the arrest or conviction of Rafael Caro Quintero”, his investigation posteruntil last Friday.
In the mountains of the western Mexican state of Sinaloa, the now 69-year-old Caro Quintero was pulled from the bushes after a Navy sniffer dog tracked him down during a search. This put an end to a nine-year flight for the Mexican, but especially the American authorities, which had long put pressure on the relationship between the two countries.
Although the drug lord is no longer as powerful as he was in the 1970s and 1980s – when he smuggled large consignments of weed, heroin and cocaine into the US with the Guadalajara cartel he founded – the northern neighbors were very keen on his arrest and extradition. Caro Quintero ordered the murder of Enrique “Kiki” Camarena in 1985. This undercover agent of the anti-narcotics agency DEA had infiltrated the Guadalajara cartel and helped the Mexican authorities to round up a huge cannabis plantation a year earlier.
Controversial release
The murder of the DEA agent severely strained US-Mexican relations. Caro Quintero fled the country by bribing Mexican authorities, but was arrested in Costa Rica later that year. In Mexico he was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the murder of Camarena. He had served 28 years of this when a judge in the state of Jalisco released him early in 2013 due to a suspected formal error: he could walk out of prison in the middle of the night. The Supreme Court was supposed to overturn the lower court’s decision, but by then Caro Quintero had already disappeared without a trace.
The founder of the Guadalajara cartel was the first drug lord to become a billionaire (in dollars) with his trade in the 1980s
The Americans never let it go and continued to pressure Mexico in recent years to reincarnate him. Friday’s arrest comes at a special moment: a few days earlier, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (nickname: AMLO) was still visiting his counterpart Joe Biden in the White House.
During that meeting, bilateral cooperation in the fight against drugs and crime was also on the agenda. Relations between the two neighboring countries have always been tense. Mexico is very keen on its sovereignty and does not accept too much interference. It points out that there would be no drug trade without US demand and complains about lax US gun laws that allow Mexican criminals to smash heavy weaponry into the neighboring country with their narcodollars. In December, Mexico passed a law restricting the DEA’s freedom of movement in the country.
The US sees the endemic corruption in Mexico as a major obstacle in the fight against drug trafficking and Caro Quintero as a notorious example of this. He bought his safe pass from the cell, as he had bribed authorities all his career. In the 1980s, he was known as the first cartel boss to become a billionaire (in dollars) thanks to the export of narcotics to the US. At the time, the Mexican press even reported on his offer to the then government to pay off the entire national debt, if only it would leave him alone.
Sensitivities
The American judiciary wants to prosecute Caro Quintero for several drug transports in 2018 and 2019, but compared to the current generation of top narcos, he remains a relatively small player. With his arrest and likely swift extradition to the US, AMLO is doing the Biden administration a favor.
Photo Jose Mendez/EPA
However, the relationship between the two countries remains sensitive even after this arrest, it also appeared on Friday. Washington, for example, had some difficulty in properly receiving the Mexican gift. DEA chief Anne Milgram issued a cheering media statement praising how “our incredible DEA squad in Mexico cooperated with Mexican authorities in the capture and arrest of Rafael Caro Quintero.”
Such (claims about) American aid are very sensitive to Mexicans and Biden’s ambassador to Mexico City had to quickly ‘clarify’ the DEA statement. “To be clear,” he said, “no American personnel participated in the tactical operation that led to Caro Quintero’s arrest: his detention was the exclusive work of the Mexican government.”
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