A spokesman with the Mexican navy revealed on Friday that notorious drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was responsible for the 1985 murder of a U.S. DEA agent, had been apprehended by Mexican troops nearly ten years after he had escaped from a Mexican jail and resumed drug trafficking.
The source agreed to corroborate the activity only provided it was not cited by name because they were not permitted to talk in public. There was no more information regarding the capture available right away.
When a judge reversed Caro Quintero's 40-year sentence for the 1985 kidnapping and murder of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, he was released from jail in 2013 after serving 28 years. Relations between the United States and Mexico reached a low point after the violent murder.
Former Guadalajara cartel boss Caro Quintero later reverted back to drug trafficking and sparked vicious territorial wars in the Sonora border state of northern Mexico.
The administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has insisted that he prefers to avoid bloodshed and has no interest in imprisoning drug lords.
The Supreme Court affirmed the sentence even after an appellate court rejected Caro Quintero's verdict. Caro Quintero was abducted and taken away in a waiting car since it was already too late.
He was wanted by the FBI, and the State Department's Narcotics Rewards Program offered a $20 million reward for his apprehension. 2018 saw the addition of his name to the FBI's top ten most wanted list.
In the late 1970s, Caro Quintero was one of the main exporters of heroin, cocaine, and marijuana to the US. He ascribed Camarena to responsibility for a 1984 raid on a marijuana crop. Camarena was taken hostage in Guadalajara in 1985, reportedly on the instructions of Caro Quintero. A month later, his tortured body was discovered.
The DEA did not immediately comment.
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