Posted on 02/28/2025 1:16:10 AM PST by Libloather
A drug cartel kingpin, known as the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s top target for his role in the killing of a DEA agent, was moved from Mexico to New York City on Thursday and is expected to face a judge on Friday, according to officials and sources.
Rafael Caro Quintero was among 29 cartel members the Mexican government released into US custody as President Trump has threatened to slap imports from Mexico with a 25% tariff on March 4 if the country doesn’t do more to crackdown on illegal immigration drug smuggling.
“Obviously, this is one of the biggest days in decades for DEA agents,” Ray Donovan, the former head of New York’s DEA office, told The Post. “This is very near and dear to every DEA agent.”
“This is bigger than Chapo for me and every other DEA Agent,” Donovan added, referring to Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, whom he’s credited with capturing. “This was personal.”
DEA Acting Administrator Derek Maltz said there is “one name” in the group of 29 cartel members “that stands above the rest for the men and women” of his agency – Quintero.
Quintero, 72, arrived in the Big Apple Thursday night and will likely be moved to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, Donovan said.
The cartel kingpin is expected to arraigned on Friday in Brooklyn Federal Court on drug-trafficking charges, sources said.
Quintero was convicted in Mexico for being the mastermind of the 1985 killing of US DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena and for the last two years has been sitting in a Guadalajara prison, sources said.
He was sent to New York while some of the other cartel members were flown to other US cities.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
In 2003 a former Mexican official, Gonzalez Calderoni, was murdered in his car in McAllen, Texas by a gunman driving a car with Louisiana plates; he had been assisting the US in investigating the 1985 murder of DEA agent Kiki Camarena:
Gonzalez [Calderoni] was a lead officer of the Mexican attorney general’s office who was credited with bringing down the Pablo Acosta Villarreal drug cartel in 1988. Gonzalez was stationed in Juárez at the time.
Former El Paso FBI acting chief Matt Perez was in charge of the U.S. side of the 1988 operation, which ended with Acosta’s dying in a hail of gunfire during a raid led by Gonzalez on his ranch in Santa Elena, Mexico, south of the Texas Big Bend area.
“I talked to (Gonzalez) two months ago. ... He knew where all of Mexico’s skeletons were hidden,” said Phil Jordan, a former Drug Enforcement Administration official and former director of the El Paso Intelligence Center. “He was the only Mexican official who stood by us throughout the investigation into the 1985 murder of DEA agent Kiki Camarena.”
They’ll probably put him up in the best hotel.
Those judges better ramp up their personal security measures.
Has he been released on no bail yet? That is NY.
He is old and probably sick. We will now provide health care for the criminal.
Send him to Gitmo
Livestream him being suspended by a harness, lowered, and fed feet first into an engine block grinder. Draw it out for an hour or two. They can not bel allowed to have it easy at taxpayer expense in jail . If any of you have seen cartel videos, you should understand.
Has the New Yawk “judge” turned him loose on the streets of New Yawk yet? He’s got some “connections” to make.
We can catch, try, & convict all the cartel leaders in Mexico, yet it wont put a dent in the cartels. Some other thug will simply take over each headless cartel & the crimes continue.
What is needed is liberal application of JDAMs, special forces & ranger raids to take or destroy cartel assets, & many, many dead cartel soldiers - don’t arrest them, kill them.
Fear of torture is the best deterrent. Livestream human shredding and acid baths, and a lot of crime will disappear.
DESIGNATING CARTELS AND OTHER ORGANIZATIONS AS FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS AND SPECIALLY DESIGNATED GLOBAL TERRORISTS
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq., the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA),50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq. it is hereby ordered:
Section 1. Purpose. This order creates a process by which certain international cartels (the Cartels) and other organizations will be designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. . .
Cartel thugs torture for a living. They live with the fear of torture & death every day. To live this life you have to be a psychopath. I doubt waterboarding would scare them.
These people will be vicious terrorists until they are dead.
Mexican drug kingpin ‘Narco of Narcos’ faces judge wearing cuffs of DEA agent he tortured, killed in 1985
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