The pair were among 29 Mexican prisoners sent Thursday to eight cities across the U.S. Caro Quintero, the former leader of the Guadalajara cartel, was behind the killing of a U.S. DEA agent in 1985 and had been on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
Cartel leaders Rafael Caro Quintero and Vicente Carrillo Fuentes are set to be arraigned in a U.S. federal court in New York City on Friday, following their surprise transfer from Mexico.
They include cartel leaders, security chiefs from both factions of the Sinaloa cartel, cartel finance operatives and a man wanted in connection with the killing of a North Carolina sheriff’s deputy in 2022.
He had served 28 years in a Mexican prison but walked free after a court overturned his 40-year sentence for the 1985 kidnapping and killing of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.
Caro Quintero returned to drug trafficking and unleashed bloody turf battles in the northern Mexico border state of Sonora until he was arrested by Mexican forces in 2022.
