Mexico sends drug lord Caro Quintero and 28 others to the U.S.
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MEXICO CITY — Mexico has sent drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was behind the killing of a DEA agent in 1985, to the United States with 28 other prisoners requested by the U.S. government, a Mexican government official and other sources said Thursday.
It 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.
The official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, confirmed Caro Quintero’s removal. Another person familiar with Mexico’s actions also confirmed the removal on condition of anonymity because they were unable to discuss sensitive diplomatic negotiations on the record.
Mexico’s attorney general’s office said in a statement that the 29 prisoners sent to the U.S. on Thursday faced charges related to drug trafficking, among other crimes.
Also among those removed were two leaders of the Los Zetas cartel, Miguel Trevi?o Morales and his brother Omar Trevi?o Morales, known as Z-40 and Z-42, the official confirmed.
“This is historical. This has really never happened in the history of Mexico,” said Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. “This is a huge celebratory thing for the Drug Enforcement Administration.”
The removal of the drug lords from Mexico coincided with a visit to Washington by Mexican Foreign Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente and other top economic and military officials, who met with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The meeting was the latest in ongoing negotiations with the U.S. over trade and security relations, which have radically shifted since President Trump took office.
Rafael Caro Quintero, who was behind the killing of a U.S. DEA agent in 1985, has been captured by Mexican forces nearly a decade after walking out of a Mexican prison and returning to drug trafficking.
In exchange for delaying tariffs, Trump had insisted that Mexico crack down on cartels, illegal migration and fentanyl production, despite significant dips in migration and overdoses over the last year. The removals may indicate that negotiations are moving along as the tariff deadline approaches.
Mexico’s surprise handover of one of the FBI’s 10 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. DEA 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 long-standing 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.
Pressure increased after Trump threatened to impose stiff trade tariffs on Mexico and designated several Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, according to the person who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomacy that went into Caro Quintero’s removal.
Mexico’s president says her government is reviewing a petition by Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a longtime Sinaloa cartel leader jailed in the United States, to be returned to Mexico for trial.
The acting head of the DEA, Derek Maltz, provided to the White House 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 No. 1 on that list, according to the person.
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, N.Y., 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 Lopez Obrador, severely curtailed Mexican cooperation with the DEA to protest undercover U.S. law enforcement operations in Mexico targeting senior political and military officials.
Immigration officials in Colombia took his fingerprints and confirmed through a database that Ochoa is not wanted by Colombian authorities.
The removal of the Trevi?o Morales brothers also marks the end of a long process, which began after the capture of Miguel Trevi?o Morales in 2013 and his brother Omar two years later. Mexican Atty. Gen. Alejandro Gertz Manero described the lags in the years-long process “truly shameful.”
The Trevi?o Morales brothers, who have been accused by U.S. authorities of running the violent Northeastern cartel from prison, have charges pending in the United States for participation in a criminal organization, drug trafficking, firearms offenses and money laundering.
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 United States’ intention is to extend its justice system,” so that crimes committed in Mexico are prosecuted in the U.S., Saucedo said.
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 to 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.
Sánchez and Goodman write for the Associated Press and reported from Mexico City and Miami, respectively. AP writer Megan Janetsky in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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