Mexico sends 29 prisoners to face charges, including drug cartel leader Rafael Caro Quintero
Mexico has sent a poison lord Rafael Caro QuinteroThe Justice Department confirmed Thursday night that he was asked to kill 28 other prisoners of U.S. DEA agents in 1985.
“The defendants detained in the U.S. today include the leaders and managers of drug cartels recently designated as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists,” the Justice Department said in a statement. It said they face charges, including rackets, drug trafficking, murder, illegal use of firearms, money laundering and other crimes.
“They are wanted for their connections with drug trafficking and other crimes by criminal organizations,” the Mexican government said in a statement. Mexico said the transfers were conducted “under an agency agreement with due respect for their fundamental rights.”
On Thursday, 29 people detained in various prisons in Mexico, including Chicago, were transferred to several U.S. cities. Houston; McKinney, Texas; New York City; Phoenix; San Antonio; Mexican government says, Washington, D.C. and White Plains, the Mexican government says.
There are also two leaders of Mexican Los Zetas cartel Miguel Treviño Morales And his brother Omar Treviño MoralesThe official confirmed that it is known as the Z-40 and the Z-42.
Mexico’s drug lords visited Washington from Mexico’s Foreign Minister Juan Lamond de La Fuente and other top economic and military officials. This meeting is the latest negotiations with the United States on trade and Security relationshipsThis has fundamentally shifted since President Trump took office.
Caro Quintero walked freely in 2013 after 28 years in prison, when the court sentenced 40 years in prison for the kidnapping and killing of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Enrique Kiki” Camarena in 1985. The brutal murder marks a low point in U.S.-Mexico relations.
FBI through AP
Caro Quintero, former leader of the Guadalajara Cartel, has since returned to drug trafficking and released bloody turf battles in Sonora, the northern border of Mexico until it was arrested by Mexican troops in 2022.
In January, a nonprofit representing the Camarena family sent a letter to the White House urging the Trump administration to renew the U.S. request to Mexico to extradite Caro Quintero, a letter provided to the Associated Press by someone familiar with the family’s outreach activities.
The letter stated: “His return to the United States will make his family desperately need to close and serve the best interest of justice.”
The US had thought 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 DEA to protect undercover US law enforcement operations in Mexico targeting senior political and military officials.
“If he was sent to the U.S. outside of formal extradition, and if Mexico had no restrictions, he could be prosecuted for everything we wanted,” said Bonnie Klapper, Brooklyn federal narcotics prosecutor familiar with the case.
The Mexican government released footage of 29 men’s cups, with some of their faces hiding behind the black bar.
Mexican Government
Transfers are from senior Mexican officials in Washington, D.C., trying to get rid of the Trump administration’s threat A 25% tariff on all Mexican imports next week.
Mr Trump said on Thursday that he intends to continue sanctions, writing: “Drugs are still pouring into our country at high and unacceptable levels in Mexico and Canada.”
In exchange for delays in tariffs, Trump insists Mexico hits the United States-Mexico Boundaries, cartels and fentanyl productiondespite a significant decline in migration and overdose in the past year. The removal may indicate that negotiations are underway as the tariff deadline approaches.
The removal of the Treviño Morales brothers also marks the end of a long process that began with the captives of Miguel Treviño Morales in 2013, and two years later, his brother Omar. This process has been so many years that at the time, Mexico’s Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero described the lag as “really shameful.”
The Treviño Morales family is accused of running violent Northeastern Cartel from prison, who is still in the United States to participate in criminal organizations, drug trafficking, gun crimes and money laundering.
