Who is Rafael Caro Quintero, “El Narco de Narcos” for whom the DEA offers 20 million dollars?

The United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is determined to catch the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, and to achieve this, it launched a new campaign that consists of distributing posters with the photos and rewards offered for information that leads to the capture of the great capos, including Rafael Caro Quintero. “The Narco of Narcos”.

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On the poster are photos of Rafael Caro-Quintero the man most wanted by the DEA and for whom it is offered $20 million; Ismael Zambada García, “El Mayo”, for whom up to 15 million dollars are being offered; Los Chapitos: Iván Archivaldo and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán, for whom 5 million dollars are offered per head; Ismael Zambada Imperial, “Mayito”, son of “Mayo; Alfonso Limón Sánchez, operator of El Chapo, and Alfonso Arzate García, “El Aquiles”. Combined, the rewards add up to $45 million.

BREAKING: The DEA launches a new poster campaign to go after the whole Sinaloa Cartel – Caro Quintero, El Mayo and Chapitos. $45 million is offered.

The campaign comes amid frustration over the level of fentanyl trafficking and lack of action in Mexico. Poster at San Ysidro border. pic.twitter.com/XzYvmrxHPD

– Ioan Grillo (@ioangrillo) May 9, 2022

Who is Caro Quintero?

Rafael Caro-Quintero “The Narco of Narcos”originally from La Noria, Sinaloa, is remembered for being one of the founders of the so-called Guadalajara Cartel along with his compadre, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, “El Jefe de Jefes”, and his soulmate Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, “Don Neto”.

Its heyday was in the 1980s, when it began to traffic drugs -mainly marijuana- on a large scale to the United States, which catapulted them as drug lords in mexico.

The imprisonment of Caro Quintero

He was imprisoned in 1985 in Costa Rica. Later, he spent 28 years incarcerated in a state prison in Jalisco. He was released in 2013; days later, the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) activated a new arrest warrant against him, but His whereabouts are currently unknown.

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The United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) recognizes Caro Quintero as the true leader of the Sinaloa Cartel after Miguel Félix Gallardo and after the fall of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, who in the past was his student.

Members of the Federal Preventive Police (PFP) guard drug trafficker Rafael Caro Quintero after an operation in the Puente Grande prison, in Guadalajara, on January 29, 2005. (AFP).

The possible conciliator of the drug bosses in Mexico

The DEA sees the “Narco of Narcos” as the only one who can reconcile the drug traffickers in Mexicothen Along with Ismael El Mayo Zambada and Juan José Esparragoza Moreno El Azul, they were forgers of the lineage of drug trafficking in Mexico.

The US intelligence services locate the operators of Rafael Caro Quintero in Phoenix, Arizona, an entity located in the center of the United States and from where the distribution of drugs to all of North America is coordinated.

After being released from jail in August 2013, Caro Quintero rejected that he has reintegrated into drug trafficking and that disputes the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel with the children of “El Chapo”.

“I don’t want anything to do with drug trafficking”

“I stopped being a drug trafficker in 1984 and I will never be one again. I want nothing to do with drug trafficking.” limited months after leaving prison.

Nevertheless, the US government will never forgive you the murder of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena” and the pilot, Alfredo Zavala Avela, in February 1985. And he wants it so much that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) offers 20 million dollars for information that leads to his capture.

Caro QuinteroFonseca Carrillo and Félix Gallardo went to prison for the kidnapping and murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena Salazar “Kiki”.

The largest seizure of the last decade

The columnist of this publishing house, Héctor De Mauleón, wrote the following a few months ago:

It was beginning 2021 when a speeding Hyundai overturned in Río San Joaquín and Ingenieros Militares, in the northern part of Mexico City. The driver fled the site on foot, heading towards Lomas de Sotelo.

Elements of the Ministry of Citizen Security who arrived at the scene discovered that there was a double bottom in the unit. Inside, 500 blocks of cocaine were found. Its weight was half a ton.

Only two weeks later, during a search carried out in the Coapa Super 4 subdivision, Sedena and the SSC seized another 800 kilos of cocaine.

It was the largest seizure of the last decade. Its approximate value reached 11 million dollars.

hit the narco

That was a real blow to drug traffickers: the largest seizure made in the last decade. There were also 11 long weapons and four short ones. Vehicles, television equipment, documents…

According to reports prepared by federal security forces, the owner of that drug was Rafael Caro Quinterothe drug dealer accused of the murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarenaand who arrived in the Jalisco prison in 2010 thanks to an amparo presented by his lawyers and granted by the Collegiate Court in Criminal Matters of the Third Circuit in Jalisco.

In the early hours of August 8, 2013, after controlling absolutely everything, from visits to drug sales, Caro Quintero walked out of the prison and got into a black truck.

When the PGR tried to arrest him, he had disappeared. He moved to rural regions of Chihuahua and Sinaloa. Through an interview he sent the message that he was not interested in returning to drug trafficking. To hide, he had the protection of Ismael El Mayo Zambada and the children of Chapo Guzmán.

The meeting

Later, however, he met with family and partners who after 28 years had kept his business alive and decided that he was going to reconquer the territories that had belonged to him: the state of sound was between them.

Caro Quintero created an armed wing known as La Barredora 24/7 and he ended up at odds with the sons of El Chapo —and it is also said with El Mayo— under the argument that he had seniority rights.

His war left Sonora full of dead. There he formed that public calamity known as the Caborca ​​Cartelwho acted in alliance with the Juarez Cartelin order to seize the state from his enemies.

“This plaza belonged to us and now all those producers, merchants and miners in the region will have to pay for a plaza,” he wrote in a narcomanta.

Source: Elcomercio