The cad rose to prominence as a co-founder of the Guadalajara Cartel, one of Latin America’s most powerful drug trafficking organizations during the 1980s, and had been one of the most popular targets of American authorities.
In a statement, the Mexican Navy said that Caro Quintero was captured in the municipality of Choix, in the state of Sinaloa, in the northwest of the country, one of the hotbeds of drug trafficking in Mexico. He was found in an area of shrubbery by a military-trained dog named Max, the Navy said.
The San Simon, Choice arrest comes after pressure from the United States, according to a Mexican official, and the same week that President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador met with US President Joe Biden Washington.
“It’s norm,” Juan Gonzalez, senior White House adviser for Latin America, said on Twitter.
Caro Quintero spent 28 years in prison for the brutal murder of a former US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent, Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, one of the most notorious murders of Mexico’s bloody narco war. The events, dramatized in the 2018 Netflix series “Narcos: Mexico”, led to a nadir in US-Mexico cooperation in the five-decade “War on Drugs”.
Caro Quintero has previously denied any involvement in Camarena’s murder.
In 2013, Caro Quintero was freed on a technicality by a Mexican judge, embarrassing the previous government.
He soon went into hiding and resumed trafficking within the Sinaloa Cartel, according to US authorities, who placed him on the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives list and put a $20 million bounty on him. dollars on his head, a record for a drug dealer.
Last year he lost a final appeal against his extradition to the United States. He will be extradited as quickly as possible, another Mexican official said.
“This is probably one of the biggest captures of the last decade in terms of significance to the DEA,” said Mike Vigil, the DEA’s former chief of international operations.
Although Caro Quintero, 69, is no longer considered a major player in international drug trafficking, the symbolic impact of his capture is significant.
For Mexican security expert Alejandro Hope, the arrest demonstrates significant cooperation between the United States and Mexico despite recent security clashes. “This type of capture is unthinkable without DEA involvement,” he said.
Mexico’s refusal to extradite Caro Quintero to the United States before his release from prison has always been a source of tension between the two countries. A US official said Washington was very keen to secure his extradition.
“Hopefully this will begin to mend the frayed relationship between the United States and Mexico in terms of combating drug trafficking,” said Vigil, a former DEA official.
In its statement, the Navy also said 14 of its personnel died after a Black Hawk helicopter crashed in the town of Los Mochis, Sinaloa, on Friday. The cause of the crash is under investigation, but so far there is no information that the incident is related to the capo’s arrest, the Navy said.