Mexican military forces have captured notorious drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was behind the torture and murder of a US drug enforcement agent in 1985.
Caro Quintero, 69, was arrested after a search dog named Max, a bloodhound, flushed him out of hiding in shrubland in the town of San Simon in Sinaloa state during a joint operation by the navy and the attorney general’s office, according to a statement from the Mexican navy.
Meanwhile, a Blackhawk helicopter carrying 15 people crashed near the coastal city of Los Mochis during the operation, killing 14 of those on board, the statement said. The one survivor is said to have been seriously injured.
Photos on social media showed the wreckage of the helicopter in a field.
The navy said the helicopter suffered an “accident” and the cause has not yet been determined.
Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said in a tweet that the helicopter crashed shortly before landing after supporting those who conducted the capture of Caro Quintero. He said the crash would be investigated.
Footage of the arrest released by the navy showed Caro Quintero, his face blurred, dressed in jeans, a soaking wet blue shirt and a baggy khaki jacket. He was being held by men wearing camouflage uniforms and equipped with assault rifles.
Caro Quintero was one of the primary suppliers of heroin, cocaine and marijuana to the US in the late 1970s and rose to prominence as a co-founder of the Guadalajara cartel, one of Latin America’s most powerful drug trafficking organisations during the 1980s – a story dramaised in the Narcos: Mexico series in 2018.
He had walked free in 2013 after 28 years in prison on a technicality by a Mexican judge, who overturned his 40-year sentence for the 1985 kidnapping and killing of US Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.
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Caro Quintero was arrested after a search dog named Max found him hiding in shrubland. Pic: AP
However, the Supreme Court upheld the sentence – by which point Caro Quintero had already been spirited off in a waiting vehicle.
He went underground and is said to have returned to drug trafficking, unleashing bloody turf battles in the border state of Sonora.
FBI’s most wanted
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Pic: AP
Caro Quintero was on the FBI’s most wanted list, with a $20m (£16.9m) reward offered for his capture.
The US government hailed the arrest, and said it would waste no time in requesting his extradition.
“This is huge,” White House senior Latin America adviser Juan Gonzalez wrote on Twitter.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement: “There is no hiding place for anyone who kidnaps, tortures, and murders American law enforcement.
“Today’s arrest is the culmination of tireless work by DEA and their Mexican partners to bring Caro Quintero to justice for his alleged crimes, including the torture and execution of DEA Special Agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena.
“We will be seeking his immediate extradition to the United States so he can be tried for these crimes in the very justice system Special Agent Camarena died defending.”
Mexico’s president has previously maintained he is not interested in detaining drug lords and prefers to avoid violence. However, the arrest comes just days after he met US President Joe Biden at the White House.
Depiction in Narcos
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Tenoch Huerta as Caro Quintero in Narcos: Mexico. Pic: Carlos Somonte/Netflix
Mexico’s drug wars were depicted in Netflix’s Narcos: Mexico, the spin-off series of the hit show based on the story of Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, which launched in 2018.
Caro Quintero is played by Mexican actor Tenoch Huerta in the show, with Diego Luna starring as his business partner Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, the leader of the Guadalajara cartel – and Michael Peña playing DEA agent Kiki Camarena.
The series explores the early origins of the Mexican drug wars and the cartel’s rise in the 1980s, dramatising the story of how several factions united and increased operations from low-level dealers into a sophisticated multinational business.
In 2017, a filmmaker scouting locations for the hit series was found dead in his car with multiple bullet wounds in a remote area of central Mexico.
