Mexican drug trafficking Rafael Caro Quintero declares himself innocent in 1985 Dea agent murder after the extradition of the United States – Firstpost

After years as one of the most wanted men of the authorities, the head of the Mexican drug poster Rafael Caro Quintero was taken to a New York court room on Friday to respond charges that include orchestrating the 1985 murder of a federal agent of the United States.

The White House called Caro Quintero “one of the most evil posters leaders in the world” in a statement before reading positions, where more than 100 agents of the drug control administration and other federal officials filled a large ceremonial room.

Dressed in an orange prison monkey, Caro Quintero, 72, spoke little during the brief procedure when his lawyer declared himself innocent in his name.

Another leader of the poster, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, 62, also declared himself innocent through a lawyer. He is accused of organizing kidnappings and murders in Mexico, but not accused of participating in the death of the agent of the DEA, Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, whose murder was dramatized in the Netflix series “Narcos: Mexico”.

Prosecutors say that Caro Quintero blamed Camarena for a raid in a huge marijuana plantation and that the agent kidnapped, tortured and killed as revenge.

“For 14,631 days, we stayed in hope, I hope this moment arrives. I hope we live to see responsibility. And now, that hope has finally become a reality, “Camarena’s family said Friday in a statement thanking President Donald Trump and all who worked in the case.

Caro Quintero, Carrillo Fuentes and another 27 Mexican prisoners were sent on Thursday to eight American cities. The measure occurred when Mexico sought to avoid the threat of the Trump administration to impose 25% tariffs on all Mexican imports next week. In exchange for delaying tariffs, Trump had insisted that Mexico take energetic measures against posters, illegal immigration and fentanyl production.

The members of the Mexico Safety Cabinet framed on Friday the transfer of the 29 prisoners as a national security decision.

“It is not a commitment to the United States. It is a commitment to ourselves, ”said Mexican Attorney Alejandro Gertz Manero. “The problem of drug trafficking and organized crime has been a true tragedy for our country.”

Caro Quintero has long been one of the main Mexican objectives of the United States for extradition. As head of the Guadalajara poster, the “Narcos de Narcos” and its partners “were pioneers on drug trafficking routes to Columbia, Mexico and in the United States,” said US prosecutor, John Durham, outside the court.

An accusation accuses Caro Quintero of presiding over an expanding criminal network responsible for channeling tons of heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana and cocaine in the United States.

He was 28 years old in a sentence of 40 years in Mexico when a Court of Appeals revoked his sentence in 2013. The Supreme Court of Mexico later confirmed it, but by then, Caro Quintero had been released and was in the wind. The authorities said he returned to drug trafficking and unleashed bloody grass battles in the border state of northern Mexico in Sonora until he was arrested by Mexican forces in 2022, authorities said.

Caro Quintero told the Spanish newspaper the country in 2018 that “he never returned to drugs.”

“I was a drug dealer 23 years ago, and now I am not, and I will never be again,” he said, according to the newspaper.

The United States added Caro Quintero to the list of 10 most wanted of the FBI in 2018 with a $ 20 million reward. Washington looked for his extradition immediately after his arrest of 2022, which occurred days after a White House meeting between the then president Joe Biden and his Mexican counterpart, then President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The extradition application stagnated when López Obrador severely reduced the cooperation of his country with the United States to protest the operations of application of US law that are addressed to Mexican political and military officials.

In January, a non -profit group that represents the Camarena family asked the new Trump administration to renew the extradition application.

Frank Tarentino III, a special agent in charge of the DEA’s office in New York, described Friday in Camarena as a “symbol of strength, honor and determination.”

Carrillo Fuentes is the brother of the drug trafficker Amado Carrillo Fuentes, known as “The Lord of the Skies”, who died in 1997. Carrillo Fuentes, nicknamed “El Virrey,” the Brothers’ businesses continued until his arrest in 2014.

He was sentenced in Mexico in 2021 to 28 years in prison.

American prosecutors say that their Juarez poster brought tons of cocaine to the country. But his lawyer, Kenneth Montgomery, signed up on Friday to any idea that Carrillo Fuentes is responsible for the flow of drugs in the United States, saying that he began before taking power and continuing long after his arrest.