EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The extradition from Mexico of 29 drug suspects on Thursday had a special meaning for the family of an American hero, former U.S. Marshal Robert Almonte says.
That’s because one of the individuals walking off the extradition flight was Rafael Caro Quintero. He was the man who allegedly ordered the abduction, torture and murder of former Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena in Guadalajara in 1985, Almonte said.
The slaying shocked the American public and exposed the brutality and impunity traffickers seemingly enjoy south of the border.
“He did a tremendous job locating large marijuana fields and eradicating the marijuana fields with the help of a Mexican pilot,” said Almonte, who also worked as an undercover narcotics detective and is a former deputy chief of the El Paso Police Department. “The Guadalajara cartel was very upset with Kiki Camarena because he was doing such a great job. So, Caro Quintero ordered the abduction of Kiki Camarena in broad daylight.”
The drug lord allegedly had the DEA agent brought to a house in the outskirts of Guadalajara. He was tortured nonstop for 36 hours until Caro Quintero allegedly had his men finish him off with a tire iron to the head.
Trying to pass off the American agent and his pilot as merely missing did not work for Caro Quintero and the other leaders of the Guadalajara cartel – Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo.
President Ronald Reagan ordered a shut down of the U.S.-Mexico border, impatient with Camarena not being found, Almonte said. The body was located a month after the agent disappeared and was eventually returned to his family. Caro Quintero ended up in a Mexican jail through 2017.
Students in Camarena’s native Calexico, California, began wearing a red ribbon to remember the agent. Three years later, Ronald and Nancy Reagan chaired the first national Red Ribbon Week to educate the country’s youth to the dangers of consuming illegal drugs.
“Yesterday was a great day, especially for the Camarena family. They are finally seeing some long overdue justice” with Caro Quintero’s extradition, said Almonte, who keeps in touch with the Camarenas. “He was, no doubt, a hero.”
Caro Quintero on Friday made his first appearance in front of a federal judge in Brooklyn on multiple drug and weapons charges.
‘Mexico could do more’ if it wanted to
The extradition of Caro Quintero, two brothers who led the Zetas drug cartel, Fonseca’s nephew Vicente Carrillo Fuentes of the Juarez cartel and 25 others came amid President Donald Trump’s threat of imposing a 25% tariff on Mexican imports.
Trump says Mexico can do more to stem the flow of migrants and illicit drugs like the deadly fentanyl to the United States. Almonte agrees, at least with the part about the drugs.
“In order to eliminate the cartels, the Mexican government has to address something that is the driving force behind the cartels’ existence, and that is the corruption,” Almonte said. “The corruption from the lowest levels of Mexican law enforcement all the way to state, military and even high-ranking officials. Not until Mexico tries to change the culture of corruption can anything change.
“Don’t get me wrong, we have our own issues with corruption here in the United States, but nowhere near to the extent they have the problem of corruption in Mexico.”
Earlier this month in El Paso, federal officials arrested a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer for allegedly conspiring with a Mexican drug cartel to smuggle migrants and allow drugs to come into the country.
In 2023, a U.S. Border Patrol agent in El Paso was arrested for allegedly offering to get a Salvadoran woman “papers” in exchange for $5,000.
Almonte laments that it takes threats from U.S. presidents – Reagan in 1985, Trump in 2025 – for drug lords south of the border to be arrested or extradited. He says the two governments should sit at the table and agree in good faith to go after criminals that are poisoning so many people north of the Rio Grande and killing thousands south of the border.
“We need to go after these cartels, and what’s disappointing to me is that the first thing (the Mexican government) says is ‘We’re a sovereign national, you can’t come, you can’t do anything in our country.’ How about not saying that and just working together to go after the cartels and eliminate them,” Almonte said. “Let’s go after these cartels, let’s eliminate them to make things better for the people in Mexico and in the United States.”
U.S. law allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty in the case of drug lords who commit or order murders while conducting organized criminal activities. But Mexico does not have a death penalty and does not allow the extradition of its citizens if they face such a punishment.
Almonte believes the U.S. won’t try to execute Caro Quintero but will try to ensure he will spend the rest of his life in an American prison.
He also opined the Trump administration will not directly attack cartel leaders even after designating them as Foreign Terrorist Organizations because he wants Mexico’s cooperation.
When asked what’s changed in the Mexican drug trafficking scene since Camarena’s killing, Almonte said cartels have multiplied and become much more brutal, if that was possible.
“They are extremely brutal killing each other off. But not only that. If you’re their enemy, if you cross them, they’re not just going to kill you, they’re going to torture you — a horrible torture — and then they’re going to kill you,” he said. “And then they like to post these videos online as a warning to anybody who’s going to mess with them. You don’t want to mess with them because this is going to happen to you.”
