Mexico sends drug lord Caro Quintero and 28 others to the US as
officials meet with Trump team
[February 28, 2025]
By FABIOLA SÁNCHEZ and JOSHUA GOODMAN
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico has sent 29 drug cartel figures, including
drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was behind the killing of a U.S. DEA
agent in 1985, to the United States as the Trump administration turns up
the pressure on drug trafficking organizations.
The unprecedented show of security cooperation comes as top Mexican
officials are in Washington trying to head off the Trump
administration's threat of imposing 25% tariffs on all Mexican imports
starting Tuesday.
Those sent to the U.S. Thursday were brought from prisons across Mexico
to board planes at an airport north of Mexico City that took them to
eight U.S. cities, according to the Mexican government.
Among them were members of five of the six Mexican organized crime
groups designated earlier this month by U.S. President Donald Trump's
administration as “foreign terrorist organizations.”
A who's who of Mexican cartels
Besides Caro Quintero were cartel leaders, security chiefs from both
factions of the Sinaloa cartel, cartel finance operatives and a man
wanted in connection with the killing of a North Carolina sheriff’s
deputy in 2022.
Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, a former leader of the Juarez drug cartel,
based in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas,
and brother of drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes, known as “The Lord of
The Skies,” who died in a botched plastic surgery in 1997, was among
those turned over to the U.S.
According to prosecutors in both countries, the prisoners sent to the
U.S. Thursday faced charges related to drug trafficking and in some
cases homicide among other crimes.
“We will prosecute these criminals to the fullest extent of the law in
honor of the brave law enforcement agents who have dedicated their
careers — and in some cases, given their lives — to protect innocent
people from the scourge of violent cartels," U.S. Attorney General
Pamela Bondi said in a statement.
Tariffs on Mexican imports looming
The removal of the drug cartel figures coincided with a visit to
Washington by Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente
and other top economic and military officials, who met with their
counterparts, including U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
In exchange for delaying tariffs, Trump had insisted that Mexico crack
down on cartels, illegal immigration and fentanyl production, despite
significant dips in migration and overdoses over the past year.
“This is historical, this has really never happened in the history of
Mexico,” said Mike Vigil, former DEA chief of international operations.
“This is a huge celebratory thing for the Drug Enforcement
Administration.”
A long-time DEA target
Mexico’s surprise handover of one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
was weeks in the making.
Caro Quintero had walked free in 2013 after 28 years in prison when a
court overturned his 40-year sentence for the 1985 kidnapping and
killing of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique “Kiki”
Camarena. The brutal murder marked a low point in U.S.-Mexico relations.
Caro Quintero, the former leader of the Guadalajara cartel, had since
returned to drug trafficking and unleashed bloody turf battles in the
northern Mexico border state of Sonora until he was arrested by Mexican
forces in 2022.
In January, a nonprofit group representing the Camarena family sent a
letter to the White House urging the Trump administration to renew
longstanding U.S. requests for Mexico to extradite Caro Quintero,
according to a copy of the letter provided to The Associated Press by a
person familiar with the family’s outreach.
“His return to the U.S. would give the family much needed closure and
serve the best interests of justice,” the letter states.
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Soldiers escort a man who authorities identified as Omar
Trevino Morales, alias "Z-42," leader of the Zetas drug cartel, as
he is moved from a military plane to a military vehicle at the
Attorney General's Office hangar in Mexico City, March 4, 2015. (AP
Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)
Pressure increased after Trump threatened imposing stiff trade
tariffs on Mexico and designated several Mexican cartels as foreign
terrorist organizations, according to a person on the condition of
anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomacy that went into Caro
Quintero’s removal.
The acting head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Derek
Maltz, provided the White House with a list of nearly 30 Mexican
targets wanted in the U.S. on criminal charges, according to the
person. Caro Quintero, for whose arrest the U.S. had offered a $20
million reward, was number one on that list, according to the
person.
“This moment is extremely personal for the men and women of DEA who
believe Caro Quintero is responsible for the brutal torture and
murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena," Maltz said
Thursday.
The person said President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government, in a rush
to seek favor with the Trump administration and show itself a strong
ally in the fight against the cartels, bypassed the formalities of
the U.S.-Mexico extradition treaty to remove Caro Quintero and the
other defendants.
That means it could potentially allow prosecutors in the U.S. to try
him for Camarena’s murder — something not contemplated in the
existing extradition request to face separate drug trafficking
charges in a Brooklyn federal court.
“If he’s being sent to the U.S. outside of a formal extradition, and
if Mexico didn’t place any restrictions, then he can be prosecuted
for whatever the U.S. wants,” according to Bonnie Klapper, a former
federal narcotics prosecutor in Brooklyn who is familiar with the
case.
The U.S. had sought the extradition of Caro Quintero shortly after
his arrest in 2022. But the request remained stuck at Mexico's
foreign ministry for unknown reasons as Sheinbaum’s predecessor and
political mentor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, severely curtailed
Mexican cooperation with DEA to protest undercover U.S. law
enforcement operations in Mexico targeting senior political and
military officials.
Cartels could respond
Also among those removed were two leaders of the now defunct Los
Zetas cartel, Mexicans Miguel Treviño Morales and his brother Omar
Treviño Morales, known as Z-40 and Z-42. The brothers have been
accused by American authorities of running the successor Northeast
Cartel from prison.
The removal of the Treviño Morales brothers marks the end of a long
process that began after the capture in 2013 of Miguel and two years
later of his brother, Omar. Mexico’s Attorney General Alejandro
Gertz Manero had described the delay as “truly shameful.”
Mexican security analyst David Saucedo said that since negotiations
with the Trump administration began, he had expected the U.S.
government to demand three things: an increase in drug seizures,
arrests of high-profile drug trafficking suspects and the handing
over of drug traffickers long targeted by the U.S. for extradition.
He called Thursday's removals “an important concession” by Mexico’s
government to the United States.
The decision also threatens to upend an unwritten understanding —
with notable exceptions — that Mexican drug lords would serve
sentences in Mexican prisons where they were often able continue to
run their illicit businesses, Saucedo said.
“There will surely be a furious reaction by drug trafficking groups
against the Mexican state,” he said.
____
Goodman reported from Miami. Megan Janetsky contributed to this
report from Mexico City.
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