<\/p>\n
After years as one of U.S. authorities\u2019 most wanted men, Mexican drug cartel boss Rafael Caro Quintero was brought into a New York courtroom Friday to answer charges that include orchestrating the 1985 killing of a U.S. federal agent.<\/p>\n
Caro Quintero pleaded not guilty to running a continuing criminal enterprise. Separately, so did Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, the leader of another cartel. He\u2019s accused of arranging kidnappings and killings in Mexico but not accused of involvement in the death of DEA agent Enrique \u201cKiki\u201d Camarena.<\/p>\n
Caro Quintero, Carrillo Fuentes and 27 other Mexican prisoners were sent Thursday<\/a><\/span> to eight U.S. cities, a move that came as Mexico sought to stave off the Trump administration\u2019s threat of imposing 25% tariffs on all Mexican imports<\/a><\/span> next week.<\/p>\n For Camarena\u2019s family, the arraignments marked a long-awaited moment.<\/p>\n \u201cFor 14,631 days, we held on to hope \u2014 hope that this moment would come. Hope that we would live to see accountability. And now, that hope has finally turned into reality,\u201d the family said in a statement thanking President Donald Trump and everyone who has worked on the case over the years.<\/p>\n The White House, in a statement Friday ahead of the arraignments, called Caro Quintero \u201cone of the most evil cartel bosses in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n In exchange for delaying tariffs, Trump had insisted that Mexico crack down on cartels, illegal immigration and fentanyl production.<\/p>\n But members of Mexico\u2019s Security Cabinet on Friday framed the transfer of the 29 prisoners as a national security decision.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is not a commitment to the United States. It is a commitment to ourselves,\u201d said Mexican Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero. \u201cThe problem of drug trafficking and organized crime has been a true tragedy for our country.\u201d<\/p>\n Security Secretary Omar Garc\u00eda Harfuch said the people sent into U.S. custody were \u201cgenerators of violence\u201d in Mexico and represented a security threat to both countries.<\/p>\n Caro Quintero has long been one of America\u2019s top Mexican targets for extradition.<\/p>\n He was one of the founders of a Guadalajara-based cartel and one of the primary suppliers of heroin, cocaine and marijuana to the U.S. in the late 1970s and 1980s.<\/p>\n Caro Quintero had Camarena kidnapped, tortured and killed in 1985 because he blamed the agent for a raid on a huge marijuana plantation the year prior, authorities said. Camarena\u2019s killing marked a low point in U.S.-Mexico relations and was dramatized in the popular Netflix series \u201cNarcos: Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n Caro Quintero had been 28 years into a 40-year sentence in Mexico when an appeals court overturned his verdict in 2013.<\/p>\n After his release, he 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<\/a><\/span>, authorities said.<\/p>\n Caro Quintero told the Spanish newspaper El Pa\u00eds in 2018 that he \u201cnever went back to drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhoever\u2019s saying it is a liar!\u201d he said, according to the newspaper. \u201cI\u2019m not working anymore, let\u2019s be clear about that! I was a drug trafficker 23 years ago, and now I\u2019m not, and I won\u2019t ever be again.\u201d<\/p>\n The U.S., which had added Caro Quintero to the FBI\u2019s 10 most wanted list in 2018 with a $20 million reward, sought his extradition immediately after his 2022 arrest. It happened days after the Mexican and U.S. presidents at the time, Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador and Joe Biden, respectively, met at the White House.<\/p>\n But the request remained in limbo as L\u00f3pez Obrador<\/a><\/span> severely curtailed his country\u2019s cooperation with the U.S. to protest undercover American law enforcement operations targeting Mexican political and military officials.<\/p>\n Then, in January, a nonprofit group representing the Camarena family sent a letter to the new Trump administration urging it to renew the extradition request.<\/p>\n Carrillo Fuentes is the brother of drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes, known as \u201cThe Lord of The Skies,\u201d who died in a botched plastic surgery in 1997. Carrillo Fuentes, who was known as \u201cThe Viceroy,\u201d continued his brother\u2019s business of smuggling drugs over the border until his arrest in 2014.<\/p>\n He was sentenced in 2021 to 28 years in prison for organized crime, money laundering and weapons violations.<\/p>\n Among the others extradited are leading members of Mexican organized crime groups recently designated<\/a><\/span> by the Republican administration as \u201cforeign terrorist organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n