Mexico has despatched drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who is needed for the infamous killing of a U.S. DEA agent in 1985, to the US with 28 different prisoners requested by the U.S. authorities, the Justice Division confirmed Thursday night.
“The defendants taken into U.S. custody immediately embody leaders and managers of drug cartels not too long ago designated as International Terrorist Organizations and Specifically Designated World Terrorists,” the Justice Division mentioned in a press release. It mentioned they’re dealing with prices together with racketeering, drug-trafficking, homicide, unlawful use of firearms, cash laundering and different crimes.
The Mexican authorities mentioned in a statement, “They have been needed for his or her hyperlinks to prison organizations for drug trafficking, amongst different crimes.” Mexico mentioned the transfers have been carried out “beneath institutional protocols with due respect for his or her elementary rights.”
Additionally on the listing have been two leaders of the Los Zetas cartel, Mexicans Miguel Treviño Morales and his brother Omar Treviño Morales, referred to as Z-40 and Z-42, the official confirmed.
The removing of the drug lords from Mexico coincided with a go to to Washington by Mexico’s International Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente and different prime financial and army officers. The assembly was the most recent in ongoing negotiations with the U.S. over commerce and security relations, which have radically shifted since President Trump took workplace.
“As President Trump has made clear, cartels are terrorist teams, and this Division of Justice is dedicated to destroying cartels and transnational gangs,”Legal professional Common Pamela Bondi mentioned in a press release.
DEA Appearing Administrator Derek S. Maltz described Caro Quintero as “a cartel kingpin who unleashed violence, destruction, and dying throughout the US and Mexico” and referred to as his switch “extraordinarily private for the women and men of DEA” on account of Caro Quintero’s position within the brutal 1985 kidnapping and killing of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.
Caro Quintero had walked free in 2013 after 28 years in jail when a court docket overturned his 40-year sentence for Camarena’s homicide. The brutal assault marked a low level in U.S.-Mexico relations.
FBI by way of AP
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 acquainted with the household’s outreach.
“His return to the U.S. would give the household a lot wanted closure and serve the very best pursuits of justice,” the letter states.
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 Lopez Obrador, severely curtailed Mexican cooperation with DEA to protest undercover U.S. legislation enforcement operations in Mexico focusing on senior political and army officers.
“If he is being despatched to the U.S. exterior of a proper extradition, and if Mexico did not place any restrictions, then he may be prosecuted for regardless of the U.S. needs,” in accordance with Bonnie Klapper, a former federal narcotics prosecutor in Brooklyn who’s acquainted with the case.
The removing of the Treviño Morales brothers additionally marks the top of an extended course of that started after the seize in 2013 of Miguel Treviño Morales and, two years later, of his brother, Omar. The method wound on for therefore a few years that then-Mexico’s Legal professional Common Alejandro Gertz Manero, described the lags as “actually shameful”.
The Treviño Morales household, who American authorities have accused of working the violent northeastern Cartel from jail, have prices pending within the US for participation in a prison group, drug trafficking, firearms offenses and cash laundering.
The 29 prisoners, who had been held in numerous prisons throughout Mexico, have been being transferred to a number of cities throughout the U.S. on Thursday, together with Chicago; Houston; McKinney, Texas; New York Metropolis; Phoenix; San Antonio; Washington, D.C. and White Plains, New York, officers mentioned.
The Mexican authorities launched mug pictures of the 29 males, with components of their faces hidden behind black bars.
Mexican authorities
The switch comes as prime Mexican officers are in Washington, D.C., attempting to move off the Trump administration’s menace of imposing 25% tariffs on all Mexican imports subsequent week.
Mr. Trump mentioned Thursday that he intends to maneuver ahead with the sanctions, writing on Truth Social that “medicine are nonetheless pouring into our Nation from Mexico and Canada at very excessive and unacceptable ranges.”
In change for delaying tariffs, Trump had insisted that Mexico crack down on the U.S.-Mexico border, cartels and fentanyl production, regardless of vital dips in migration and overdoses over the previous 12 months. The removals might point out that negotiations are transferring alongside because the tariff deadline approaches.
