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

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 stress on drug trafficking organizations.

The unprecedented present of safety cooperation comes as high Mexican officers are in Washington attempting 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 “overseas terrorist organizations.”

A who’s who of Mexican cartels

In addition to 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, based mostly within the border metropolis of Ciudad Juarez, throughout from El Paso, Texas, and brother of drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes, generally known 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 response to prosecutors in each international locations, the prisoners despatched to the U.S. Thursday confronted prices associated to drug trafficking and in some instances murder amongst different crimes.

“We are going to prosecute these criminals to the fullest extent of the legislation in honor of the courageous legislation enforcement brokers who’ve devoted their careers — and in some instances, given their lives — to guard harmless individuals from the scourge of violent cartels,” U.S. Legal professional Common Pamela Bondi stated in an announcement.

Tariffs on Mexican imports looming

The removing of the drug cartel figures coincided with a go to to Washington by Mexico’s International Affairs Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente and different high financial and navy 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 important dips in migration and overdoses over the previous yr.

“That is historic, this has actually by no means occurred within the historical past of Mexico,” stated Mike Vigil, former DEA chief of worldwide operations. “It is a big celebratory factor for the Drug Enforcement Administration.”

An extended-time DEA goal

Mexico’s shock handover of one of many FBI’s Ten Most Wished 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 duplicate of the letter supplied to The Related Press by an individual accustomed to the household’s outreach.

“His return to the U.S. would give the household a lot wanted closure and serve one of the best pursuits of justice,” the letter states.

Strain 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 removing.

The performing head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Derek Maltz, supplied the White Home with a listing of almost 30 Mexican targets needed within the U.S. on felony prices, in accordance with the particular person. Caro Quintero, for whose arrest the U.S. had supplied a $20 million reward, was primary on that listing, in accordance with the particular person.

“This second is extraordinarily private for the women and men of DEA who imagine Caro Quintero is liable for the brutal torture and homicide of DEA Particular Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena,” Maltz stated Thursday.

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

Which means it might doubtlessly permit 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 prices in a Brooklyn federal court docket.

“If he is being despatched to the U.S. exterior of a proper extradition, and if Mexico did not place any restrictions, then he could be prosecuted for regardless of the U.S. needs,” 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. legislation enforcement operations in Mexico focusing on senior political and navy officers.

Cartels might 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, generally known as Z-40 and Z-42. The brothers have been accused by American authorities of working the successor Northeast Cartel from jail.

The removing of the Treviño Morales brothers marks the tip of a protracted course of that started after the seize in 2013 of Miguel and two years later of his brother, Omar. Mexico’s Legal professional Common Alejandro Gertz Manero had described the delay as “actually 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.

Troopers escort a person who authorities recognized as Omar Trevino Morales, alias “Z-42,” chief of the Zetas drug cartel, as he’s moved from a navy aircraft to a navy automobile on the Legal professional Common’s Workplace hangar in Mexico Metropolis, March 4, 2015.

Eduardo Verdugo/AP

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Eduardo Verdugo/AP

He referred to as Thursday’s removals “an vital 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’ll absolutely be a livid response by drug trafficking teams in opposition to the Mexican state,” he stated.