According to a statement from the navy, the now 69-year-old Caro Quintero, also known as the narco of narcos, has been arrested in the city of Choix in the state of Sinaloa in the northwestern parts of the country “for extradition purposes”.
He is accused and is wanted by the United States for kidnapping, torture and the murder of Special Agent Enrique Camarena, at the US Drug Enforcement Administration DEA in 1985. The murder caused a crisis in diplomatic relations between the United States and Mexico.
Sentenced to 40 years in prison
Caro Quintero was arrested the same year and brought to justice in Mexico, where he was sentenced to 40 years in prison. However, he was released in 2013 after 28 years due to a legal technicality. The decision was appealed by Mexico’s Supreme Court, but by then Rafael Caro Quintero was already on the run from justice.
The arrest of Qunitero came just days after Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador visited US President Joe Biden at the White House.
“This is big,” Juan Gonzalez, Latin America’s White House adviser, wrote on Twitter after the arrest.
Can lead to better relations between the countries
Mike Vigil, former head of international operations at the DEA, the US Federal Drug Enforcement Administration, believes that this may be one of the most important arrests made in recent times.
“It’s probably one of the DEA’s most important arrests in the last decade,” he reports the Guardian.
Mexico’s reluctance to extradite Quintero to the United States before his release from prison in 2013 led to tensions between the two countries.
“This will hopefully begin to mend the strained relationship between the United States and Mexico in the fight against drug trafficking,” Vigil said.