FBI Names Mexico’s ‘Narco of Narcos’ to Top 10 Most Wanted List
by Mimi Yagoub
InSight Crime
April 13, 2018
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) just added one of Mexico’s most legendary drug lords, Rafael Caro Quintero, to its list of most wanted fugitives. But 40 years after his heyday, is the one-time kingpin really still in the game?
Quintero, also known as the “Narco of Narcos,” was one of the founders of Mexico’s first monolithic criminal organization, the Guadalajara Cartel. He was arrested in 1985, accused of the torture and assassination of an agent of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) named Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. The gruesome murder caused lasting outrage among US law enforcement.
Despite being sentenced to 40 years in a Mexican prison, Caro Quintero was suspiciously granted early release in 2013 due to a technicality. Mexico almost immediately issued an order for his re-arrest. The US State Department offered a reward for information leading to his capture, and the DEA put him on its most wanted list.
Now, after nearly five years as a fugitive, Caro Quintero is back in the spotlight. On April 12, the FBI added him to its list of the agency’s ten most wanted fugitives.
Caro Quintero has been in the public eye recently after giving an interview to Aristegui Noticias, in which he denied still being in the drug business.
“I’m not part of any cartel,” he said. “I’m never going back to drug trafficking.”
But the recent wanted notice alleges that 65-year-old holds “an active key leadership position directing the activities of the Sinaloa Cartel and the Caro-Quintero Drug Trafficking Organization within the region of Badiraguato, Sinaloa, Mexico.”
The FBI is offering a reward of up to a $20 million for information leading to Caro Quintero’s arrest, twenty times the total amount being offered for every other suspect on the top ten list combined. By comparison, the US State Department was offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, one of the world’s biggest drug lords, before his arrest in 2016.
InSight Crime Analysis
The naming of Caro Quintero as one of the FBI’s most wanted is likely related to his alleged role in the brutal torture and slaying of Camarena. The fallen agent is considered by many in US law enforcement to be a hero, and Caro Quintero’s early release was percieved as an insult.
“There was an opinion that [Caro Quintero] was going to be arrested pretty soon” after his release in 2013, former top DEA official Mike Vigil told InSight Crime.
If Caro Quintero were arrested, there is a strong possibility that the United States would seek his extradition on charges related to Camarena’s murder. But the FBI’s allegations that Caro Quintero is still active in Mexico’s underworld suggest that drug trafficking activities may also have brought him back to the attention of law enforcement.
These claims have been surfacing for some time. In 2016, some accounts hazily linked Caro Quintero to power plays and attacks against El Chapo and the Sinaloa Cartel. Yet such theories remain shaky to this day, for a number of reasons. The DEA’s most recent National Drug Threat Assessment report named him as one of the main leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Vigil, who spent much of his time as a federal agent in Mexico, said Caro Quintero may value his freedom over a stake in the drug trade.
“I’m not convinced he’s been trafficking drugs,” Vigil said. “He’s old, he’s sick. He knows if he’s recaptured he’ll die in prison.”
Caro Quintero may also be out of touch with the realities of today’s underworld, which differs sharply from that of the 1980s. Over the past several decades Mexico’s cartels have become more fragmented and more violent, with different factions constantly battling for control. The idea of Caro Quintero wading into the chaos and taking the reins with the current bosses’ consent is hard to imagine.
Even if the one-time “Narco of Narcos” is still involved in crime, his clout may also be overestimated. An article published by the Combating Terrorism Center several months after his 2013 release concluded that if Caro Quintero had any remaining influence, it would probably be restricted to money laundering.
“Caro Quintero’s importance today is likely mostly symbolic given his age and apparent lack of influence in drug trafficking operations in recent years. It is possible, however, that Caro Quintero still has clout when it comes to the money laundering side of cartel operations,” wrote author Malcolm Beith.
Will the FBI’s move hasten Caro Quintero’s capture? Vigil believes that he has managed to evade arrest by hiding out deep in the rugged mountains of Sinaloa, where he was born, and may be protected by local communities. If he does not leave that shelter, the challenge for Mexican and US enforcement will be much greater.
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Placed on U.S. 10 most wanted, Mexican Marines ordered to get Rafael Caro Quintero, “Dead or Alive”
By Miguel Ángel Vega
Borderland Beat (translated from Riodoce)
April 13, 2018
Dozens of elite elements of the Mexican Navy [Marina] occupied a large part of the lower Sierra of Badiraguato last week, after receiving information that Rafael Caro Quintero was hidden in the area.
"We know he's still here, and that's why we continue in the area, because the command is to catch him dead or alive, and we're going to take him back. How are we going to take him? Let him decide, "said one of the agents of the Navy patrolling the area, and whom Ríodoce interviewed.
According to testimonies of residents of the communities of La Noria, Las Juntas, Babunica and Bamopa, the marines arrived there Wednesday March 7 in four Blackhawk helicopters, from where, without even landing, they rappelled down from the Aircraft to aggressively enter some homes in search of the drug trafficker.
"We were herding cattle when out of the blue we had two assholes on top of us, and in seconds we were surrounded (by Marines), and with guns to our heads we were asked “where Don Rafa was", narrated a resident of La Noria, who preferred not to disclose his identity for fear of some retaliation.
The vaquero added that, simultaneous to that threat, several uniformed [marines] went to the ranch of Doña Hermelinda Quintero, and broke through doors and padlocks, entered the house in search of the Sinaloan, while at the same time other marines violently took him and his partner, and with their faces covered they said: "Look you sons of bitches, right now you will tell us where your boss is!"
Such accusations were confirmed by residents of Babunica, including commissioner of the Ejido, Erika Serrano, who said she had received complaints from the inhabitants, both men and women.
"We understand that they (the Marines) are doing their job, but they don't have to treat people badly, and spread terror among us, because in the first place people have no obligation to tell them where this gentleman is, even though they may know where he is," said the Bobunica official.
"It is that there have been many abuses reported; men who were tortured, they have taken away motorcycles, vehicles and what they can, because they require them to tell where is this Mr. Rafael Caro, but they have no basis to accuse them, now if they say he is here, to look for him, and to take him away " she emphasized.
In Culiacan, activist groups such as the Sinaloan Civic Front (FCS) and the Human Rights Defense Commission (CDDHS) confirmed that in the last 10 days, they received dozens of complaints from residents of the Sierra de Badiraguato, who accused the marines of violating their rights as citizens.
"It is troubling what is happening in the Sierra de Badiraguato, because it is not the first time that this type of abuse by the army or the navy occurred where we witness it first hand, abusing their power, they beat and rob people, propagating fear among the population , and we are already putting together a file with the abuses, to send it to the National Human Rights Commission to take a look into the matter, and for something to be done, "said Miguel Ángel Murillo, in charge of the legal area of the FCS.
The secretariat of the Navy denied that its staff is operating in ways that violate human rights, further stating that they are not looking for the drug trafficker.
"So far there is no information to confirm that we are following members of organized crime in that area," explains a statement from that unit sent to this weekly [newspaper].
However, the search for Rafael Caro Quintero is real, and according to marines interviewed in the different communities, the place is still under siege because the order is not to move from the Sierra until they find Caro Quintero and take him away.
"Still, what I can tell you, we have closed off all access and strategic points, and it is difficult for someone to leave here without us noticing," said one of the marines, interviewed near the town of Las Juntas.
Rapid and Silent
The operation started on Wednesday March 7th, around 5:00 pm, and although in the Sierra of Sinaloa there is an intense silence in the mountains, no one managed to hear the six helicopters that, simultaneously, came to Babunica, La Noria and Las Juntas, two in each community.
"What we believe is that they were high above, so we did not hear them or see them, and when they were ready, they rappelled themselves down, and did not land as I said, but they threw ropes and from above they came down," said the vaquero from La Noria.
According to other testimonies gathered in these towns, it would have been two helicopters that landed in La Noria, two others in Babunica, and two others in Las Juntas, and from there no one was left out: The sailors besieged each ranch and from that moment began the search and interrogations.
"They already had us surrounded, when two sailors grabbed me, they tied my hands, and they asked me where Don Rafa was, and I knew where that gentleman was, and they started to hit my buttocks and legs with a table until they left them purple." Said the vaquero, as he showed the wounds.
At the same time, residents of the Las Juntas and Babunica were also subjected [to abuse], even, it is said that motorcycles and pickups were seized only because they carried radios to communicate with each other.
"We carry radios not because we are people of a cartel, but to communicate between us because here there is no phone signal or anything, and is the only way to communicate," said a tanker driver who moved water from Bamopa to different ranches in that area , including Babunica.
"Listen, it was ugly, very ugly!" he exclaimed.
But not only men were abused, also women; One of them, the manager in charge of the Diconsa store that is located in the town of Guanajuato, at the edge of the road, whose grocery three marines came in to ask for information on the whereabouts of Rafael Caro Quintero.
"I told them I didn't know anything about him, and they yelled at me not to be stupid, because they knew I supplied their food, and if I didn't cooperate with them I would be raped," said the woman.
Leonel Aguirre Meza, president of the CDDHS explained that, even if a person knows where a defendant is, he cannot be accused of concealment by the simple principle that the law protects the citizen, and he cannot be obliged to inform or give information to any kind of authority.
"He may be a friend, even a family member of a wanted person, and that does not mean that they should inform the authority of the whereabouts of an individual, whether the authority is military or civil or whoever, the law protects this person," said Aguirre Meza.
Until the closing of this edition, the presence of the Marines was maintained in the area, and although officially no clashes had been recorded, the people did not seem very happy with the presence of the soldiers, who accordingly insist that Caro Quintero continued hidden in the area.
Let's get him: DEA
For the DEA, this type of operation is proof that it is only a matter of time before Caro is arrested, and therefore they work in coordination with the Mexican government in intelligence work to find his whereabouts, and bring him to justice in the United States.
RCQ says he already paid his sentence — Via telephone, I am told by Melvin Patterson, spokesman for the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), during a telephone interview, to which the American official exclaims:
"It is what he wants, it is his way of looking at things, but we have another perspective, and it is very different from how he sees it, and we will bring him to the United States to pay for the crimes that his is accused of.
According to file 2:87-cr-00422, [correct number1:15-cr-00208] based in a federal court in the Central district of California, Caro Quintero is charged with homicide, organized crime, money laundering, kidnapping and first-degree homicide of federal agent Enrique Camarena, even though he was tried in Mexico for those same crimes.
After his release, in August 2013, a Mexican federal judge ordered his rearrest after the U.S. government requested his arrest for immediate extradition, but since then, the former leader of the Jalisco cartel has gone on the run without the government stopping him. But this time they're going to get him, they say: "Dead or Alive.
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