Rafael Caro Quintero

Lore & Background

After the murders, Caro Quintero fled to Costa Rica but later that year was arrested and extradited to Mexico, where he was sentenced to 40 years in prison for murder. Following his arrest, the Guadalajara Cartel disintegrated, and its leaders were incorporated into the Tijuana Cartel, Sinaloa Cartel, and Juárez Cartel. After serving 28 years in prison, Caro Quintero was freed in August 2013 after a state court concluded that he had been tried improperly.

The day after his release, amid pressure from the United States government to re-arrest him, a Mexican federal court issued an arrest warrant against Caro Quintero. He was at large as a wanted fugitive in Mexico, the United States, and several other countries. On April 12, 2018, he was added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, replacing Jesus Roberto Munguia. The United States offered a 20-million-dollar reward for information leading to his capture, the highest value among fugitives on the list.

Caro Quintero lost his final appeal to avoid extradition to the United States on March 27, 2021. He was arrested in Mexico on July 15, 2022, and was extradited to the United States on February 27, 2025.

Reader's Guide

Rafael Caro Quintero was born in La Noria, Badiraguato, Sinaloa, on October 24, 1952. His parents, Emilio Caro Payán and Hermelinda Quintero, had twelve children; he was the oldest son. His father worked in agriculture and grazing and died when Caro Quintero was 14. With his father's absence, he worked alongside his mother to care for his family.

At age 16, he left La Noria and settled in Caborca, Sonora, where he worked in livestock grazing. Two years later, he worked as a truck driver in Sinaloa. He also worked at a bean and corn plantation in Sinaloa before deciding to leave his home state altogether to join the drug trade in the neighboring state of Chihuahua. When he was a teenager, Caro Quintero allegedly began to grow marijuana on a small scale at the ranch owned by his brother Jorge Luis.

In less than five years, Caro Quintero managed to buy several other ranches in the surrounding areas and began to amass larger amounts of money and influence. He is said to have first worked for the drug traffickers Pedro Avilés Pérez and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo before forming the Guadalajara Cartel with Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, Juan José Esparragoza Moreno, and others in the late 1970s. He has been cited as a pioneer of the drug trade in Mexico and has been described as one of the pre-eminent drug traffickers of his generation.

On April 4, 1985, Caro Quintero was arrested in Alajuela, Costa Rica, while sleeping in a mansion just 800 metres (1⁄2 mi) from Juan Santamaría International Airport and extradited to Mexico on charges of involvement in Camarena's murder. He was sentenced to 40 years for the murder of Camarena and other crimes. Caro Quintero was first imprisoned at the Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1 maximum security prison in Almoloya de Juárez, State of Mexico.

In 2007, he was transferred to another maximum security prison, Puente Grande, in Jalisco. In 2010, a federal judge granted him the right to be transferred to another prison in Jalisco. In the early hours of August 9, 2013, a court ordered the immediate release of Caro Quintero after he had served 28 years in prison. After a motion by a state judge and magistrate, Rosalía Isabel Moreno Ruiz, the Jalisco state court ruled that Caro Quintero was tried improperly in a federal courtroom for crimes that should have been treated at a state level.

On August 14, 2013, a federal court granted the Office of the General Prosecutor an arrest warrant against Caro Quintero after the United States government issued a petition to the Mexican government.