Following their surprise expulsions from Mexico, two of the U.S.’s most wanted drug lords on Friday appeared in federal court in Brooklyn, accused of leading murderous drug trafficking cartels that flooded the nation with deadly narcotics for decades.
Brooklyn Magistrate Judge Robert Levy ordered Rafael Caro Quintero and Vicente Carillo Fuentes held without bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn after both pleaded not guilty to a litany of drug trafficking charges.
The feds say Caro Quintero, 72 — the so-called “narco of narcos” — masterminded the infamous kidnapping, torture and murder of Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Enrique “Kike” Camarena in 1985 and pumped untold quantities of drugs into the U.S. while serving as one of the founding members of the notorious Guadalajara Cartel, the predecessor of the Sinaloa Cartel. Camarena’s killing was dramatized in the popular Netflix series “Narcos.”
Carillo Fuentes headed the cartel in the Mexican state of Juarez for 20 years and partnered with the Sinaloa cartel run by prolific Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera to traffic hundreds of thousands of kilos of cocaine into the U.S., Brooklyn U.S. Attorney John Durham said at a press conference Friday.
The two men were among 29 prisoners “expelled” from Mexico late Thursday to face justice in the U.S. amid looming tariffs the Trump administration has threatened to impose on its southern neighbor if it doesn’t take more action to stem the flow of drugs across the border. All of those transported were transferred out of Mexican prisons.
On Friday, New York feds called the expulsions “historic.”
“For nearly four decades, the men and women of the DEA have pursued Rafael Caro Quintero, the man responsible for the kidnapping, torture and death of fallen DEA Special Agent Kiki Camarena and the leader of one the most notorious and violent drug cartels,” DEA New York Special Agent in Charge Frank Tarentino said. “Today, Rafael Caro Quintero will finally face the consequences for the crimes he committed.”
Durham said Caro Quintero and his associates pioneered drug trafficking routes through Colombia, Mexico and into the United States, building one of the most significant drug organizations in the world that trafficked heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana.
“Having built this lucrative business, Caro Quintero used extreme violence to protect the cartel’s operations, beating and killing anyone who got in his way,” Durham said, adding that included Camarena when the DEA special agent infiltrated operations at the kingpin’s largest drug producing ranch.
Caro Quintero was incarcerated in Mexico from 1985 to 2013, continuing to run his empire from prison through family associates, Durham said. After his release from prison on a technicality, he went to ground as a fugitive from justice for a decade.
Under the leadership of Carillo Fuentes, the Juarez cartel “dominated and decimated” the border corridor between El Paso, Tex., and Ciudad Juarez, for some 20 years, Durham said.
“Throughout his partnership with the Sinaloa Cartel, Carillo Fuentes and his associates corrupted public officials, taxed other drug trafficking organizations, and engaged in extraordinary levels of violence,” the U.S. attorney said.
Caro Quintero on Friday was arraigned on charges including allegations he led a criminal enterprise, engaged in murder conspiracy, international narcotics distribution conspiracy, and unlawful use of firearms in furtherance of drug trafficking. Carillo Fuentes was arraigned on similar allegations, plus a money-laundering count.
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Eduardo Verdugo/AP In this Feb. 22, 2014, file photo, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the head of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, is escorted to a helicopter in Mexico City following his capture in the beach resort town of Mazatlan, Mexico.
They face mandatory life sentences if convicted and potentially the death penalty and are set to face trial in the same district as El Chapo, who was convicted of 26 drug-related violations and murder conspiracy in February 2019 and later sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years following the largest drug trafficking trial ever held in a U.S. courtroom, which spanned three months. He’s since been incarcerated at ADX Florence in Colorado, “the Alcatraz of the Rockies.”
Caro Quintero’s attorney, Michael Vitaliano, and Kenneth Montgomery for Castillo Fuentes did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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