Along with Mexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, 28 others were sent to the United States as the Trump administration turns up the pressure on drug trafficking organisations.
Mexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, along with 28 other drug cartel figures has been sent to the United States as the Trump administration turns up the pressure on drug trafficking organisations. Quintero was behind the killing of a United States DA agent in 1985.
The unprecedented show of security cooperation comes as top Mexican officials are in Washington trying to head off the Trump administration’s threat of imposing 25% tariffs on all Mexican imports starting Tuesday.
Those sent to the US Thursday were brought from prisons across Mexico to board planes at an airport north of Mexico City that took them to eight US cities, according to the Mexican government.
Who were the drug cartel members handed over to US?
Among them were members of five of the six Mexican organized crime groups designated earlier this month by US President Donald Trump’s administration as “foreign terrorist organizations.”
Besides Caro Quintero were 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.
Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, a former leader of the Juarez drug cartel, based in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, and brother of drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes, known as “The Lord of The Skies,” who died in a botched plastic surgery in 1997, was among those turned over to the US
According to prosecutors in both countries, the prisoners sent to the US Thursday faced charges related to drug trafficking and in some cases homicide among other crimes.
“We will prosecute these criminals to the fullest extent of the law in honour of the brave law enforcement agents who have dedicated their careers — and in some cases, given their lives — to protect innocent people from the scourge of violent cartels,” US Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement.
Trump insisted Mexico to crack down on cartels
The removal of the drug cartel figures coincided with a visit to Washington by Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente and other top economic and military officials, who met with their counterparts, including US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
In exchange for delaying tariffs, Trump had insisted that Mexico crackdown on cartels, illegal immigration and fentanyl production, despite significant dips in migration and overdoses over the past year.
“This is historical, this has really never happened in the history of Mexico,” said Mike Vigil, former DEA chief of international operations. “This is a huge celebratory thing for the Drug Enforcement Administration.”
