Mexican cartel leader Rafael Caro Quintero pleads not guilty to drug trafficking charges

BROOKLYN (CN) — Drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who masterminded the killing of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent in 1985, pleaded not guilty Friday after Mexico expelled him and 28 other cartel figures to the United States this week.

The handout, which includes several powerful cartel leaders, represents the most significant effort on the Mexican government’s part to send accused drug traffickers to be charged in the United States. The move comes amid threats from the Trump administration to impose increased tariffs due to its view that the Mexican government has failed to sufficiently curb cartel conduct.

Quintero co-founded the now-disintegrated Guadalajara cartel, which later became absorbed into the Sinaloa Cartel, the largest drug trafficking organization in the world.

He was also convicted in Mexico for masterminding the murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. The killing earned him the name “Narco of Narcos,” after the hit Netflix show that featured Camarena’s murder in its plot.

In remembrance of that fallen agent, over 100 DEA agents and law enforcement officers attended Quintero’s arraignment held in the ceremonial courtroom at Brooklyn federal court.

“After 40 years, the man who murdered DEA Special Agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena is finally here to face justice in the United States,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Saritha Komatireddy said during the hearing. “He and his partners pioneered the Mexican drug trafficking industry.”

DEA New York Special Agent-in-Charge Frank Tarentino said at a news conference that the arraignment is proof that no person can get away with killing a DEA agent.

“It is a reminder to everyone that if you come after us, if you hurt one of us, there is no obstacle we cannot overcome,” Tarentino said. “There is no border we will not cross and there is no criminal that can escape the reach of the DEA and the rule of law.”

Quintero spent 28 years in prison in Mexico, where U.S. federal prosecutors say he continued to operate his drug trafficking organization and used family members and associates on the outside to assist him.

When he was released in 2013, prosecutors add he went into “hiding in the jungles and mountains of Sinaloa,” a state on the western coast of Mexico.

He was indicted in 2020 on various drug trafficking and weapons charges for his role in ordering the transport of mass quantities of cannabis, cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin into the United States.

Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, who led the Juarez Cartel for over two decades, also pleaded not guilty Friday to charges for drug trafficking and ordering the murders of rival cartel members. According to prosecutors, Fuentes’ cartel used its control of the Texas-Mexico border to deliver multi-ton shipments of cocaine throughout the United States, including to locations in New York, Texas, California and Illinois.

“For decades, Rafael Caro Quintero and Vicente Carrillo Fuentes have flooded the United States and other countries with drugs, violence and mayhem, killing so many in their quest for power and control,” Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York John J. Durham said at a news conference.

Quintero is being charged in the same courthouse where various high-profile cartel figures have been prosecuted, including Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who was convicted on drug trafficking charges in 2019.

Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who is accused of heading the Sinaloa cartel alongside Guzman, currently awaits trial on drug trafficking charges.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert M. Levy ordered both Quintero and Fuentes be held in detention. If convicted, they both face life in prison and the possibility of the death penalty.

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