Caro Quintero co-founded the Guadalajara cartel in the early 1980s, which during that period grew into one of the most powerful criminal organizations in Latin America. Now, according to the DEA, he is said to run a branch of the infamous Sinaloa cartel. The Mexican is in the top ten list of the most wanted criminals by the FBI. The Americans had offered a reward of twenty million dollars/euro for the golden tip that would lead to his arrest. According to the navy, the drug lord was arrested in Choix, with the aim of extraditing him.
The Americans have not forgotten the 1985 murder of Enrique Camarena, an American agent of the anti-drug unit DEA. The agent was kidnapped and brutally tortured before his death. The murder case severely strained ties between the United States and Mexico. Caro Quintero was arrested that same year and subsequently tried in Mexico and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
However, he was released in 2013 due to a legal error. That decision was later overturned by the Mexican Supreme Court, but by then the drug lord was already in hiding. The United States immediately requested his extradition.
The new arrest of Caro Quintero follows shortly after the visit of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to Washington DC. He met his American counterpart Joe Biden there on Tuesday.
The criminal and the murder of Camarena are also featured in the popular Netflix series Narcos: Mexico, about the rise of the Guadalajara cartel and the Mexican drug trade.