Caro-Quintero capture shows fraught security cooperation
Mexican marines nabbed drug lord Rafael Caro-Quintero, whose recapture was a top priority for the DEA. But Mexico's president – backed by the US ambassador – says the DEA was not involved
Mexican marines nabbed fugitive drug boss Rafael Caro-Quintero on July 14, re-capturing the man responsible for the 1985 murder of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. The recapturing of Caro-Quintero – who was sniffed out of a thicket by a navy search dog named Max in western Sinaloa state – showed the continued close co-operation between U.S. security officials and the Mexican Navy, which has come to be seen as a much more trustworthy party than the Mexican Army over the past 15 years. But the fallout – with Mexico’s populist president and the U.S. ambassador to Mexico quickly disavowing DEA participation in the re-capture – also showed the extreme sensitivity of security cooperation under the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who seemed nonplussed by the capture and only mentioned it on the day of the event in a tweet thread expressing condolences for the 14 members of the Navy who perished after their Blackhawk helicopter crashed.
The deceased Navy personnel had participated in the capture of Caro-Quintero. News of the tragedy following a success on the security front summed up Mexico’s frustrations in the crackdown on drug cartels and organized crime since then-president Felipe Calderón sent the armed forces to combat them in December 2006. Crime journalist Héctor de Mauleón described it as:
“A success shrouded by a tragedy. In a word: Mexico.”
TOP DEA PRIORITY
Caro-Quintero led the Guadalajara Cartel in the 1980s, when the city was a hub of narcotics activities. He was ostentatious to the point that people would comment of the gaudy homes being built around Guadalajara: “It’s Caro-Quintero’s,” according to Guadalajara-based columnist Diego Petersen-Farrah.
Kiki Camarena was an undercover DEA agent in the city, who infiltrated the Guadalajara Cartel. He was murdered in 1985 at a marijuana-growing ranch known as “El Bufalo,” where he was tortured to death. Caro-Quintero fled to Costa Rica, but was captured and returned to Mexico. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison, but was mysteriously set free in 2013.
A judge in Jalisco state ruled that Camarena was tried on the federal level, instead of the state level and ordered him released. (The Supreme Court later overturned that decision.) Camarena was released in the middle of the night – without the U.S. Embassy or DEA being informed. Mike Vigil, former DEA head of global operations, said of the 2013 court decision:
“The DEA looked at that as corruption.”
The FBI offered a $20 million reward for Caro-Quintero’s re-arrest. The reward surpassed the sums offered for Pablo Escobar and Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, according to Vigil. It showed the importance of bringing Caro-Quintero to justice – even though analysts were split over his stature in the Mexican underworld over the past decade.
“There’s a historical debt to be paid by him from the American perspective,” Falko Ernst, senior Mexico analyst for the International Crisis Group said of the arrest.
REGIONAL PLAYER
An analysis from InSight Crime attributed rising violence in Sonora state (north of Sinaloa and bordering Arizona) to Caro-Quintero’s Caborca Cartel, which was disputing territory with Los Chapitos – the faction of the Sinaloa Cartel led by El Chapo’s sons.
But he remained a top priority for the DEA, which worked closely with the Mexican Navy of recapturing Caro-Quintero. The Washington Post published an in-depth investigation into the hunt for Caro-Quintero, documenting the numerous close calls over the years and thorniness of his continued being on the lam for U.S.-Mexico security cooperation. It quotes Timothy Shea, former acting DEA administrator from 2020 to 2021, who said of Mexico’s attitude:
“The Government of Mexico acts only when it’s in their political interest to act.”
NO DEA INVOLVEMENT?
U.S. officials were quick to congratulate Mexican marines and the DEA for the capture. Attorney General Merrick Garland promised to pursue immediate extradition. (A Mexican judge quickly granted Caro-Quintero an injunction against immediate extradition.)
DEA administrator Anne Milgram told staff after the arrest: “Our incredible DEA team in Mexico worked in partnership with Mexican authorities to capture and arrest Rafael Caro Quintero.”
But U.S. Ambassador in Mexico Ken Salazar quickly downplayed any DEA involvement in the arrest, though his statement left some wiggle room.
“For clarification, no United States personnel participated in the tactical operation that resulted in Caro Quintero’s arrest: the apprehension of Caro Quintero was exclusively conducted by the Mexican government.”
In his first comments on the re-capture of Caro-Quintero, López Obrador (commonly called AMLO) echoed Salazar’s comments – provoking social media comments on Salazar’s seemingly cozy relationship with the president. He insisted:
“It was a task carried out by the federal prosecutor’s office with the help of the Navy Secretariat. In the case of the DEA, as the United States ambassador remarked, there is no directed involvement.”
A reporter in the press conference persisted, asking AMLO, “But they participated with information? AMLO insisted again, no.
“Information is requested in some cases, in this case no. In the case of the communication, a request had been made through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs some time ago for them to cooperate with information, but it was not carried out.”
He mostly responded with spitballing on the topic of Caro-Quintero – as he’s wont to do in his morning press conferences.
The Washington Post reported heavy DEA involvement in Caro-Quintero’s re-capture. The DEA even recruited his own kin as informants.
NAVY VS ARMY
That Caro-Quintero would be caught by the Mexican marines surprised few observers. The Navy has previously been involved in takedowns of big Mexican capos, including Arturo Beltrán Leyva “El Barbas” in Cuernavaca in 2009 and El Chapo in 2014 and 2016.
Th then-U.S. ambassador Carlos Pascual let the U.S. preference for the Navy (SEMAR) ever the Army (SEDENA) be known in documents from divulged by Wikileaks:
“Below the surface of military professionalism, there is also considerable tension between SEDENA and SEMAR. SEMAR succeeded in the take down of Arturo Beltran Leyva, as well as with other major targets. Aside from the perceived failure of its mission in Juarez, SEDENA has come to be seen slow and risk averse even where it should succeed.”
The leaks led to Pascual’s resignation.
Vigil, the former DEA supervisor, said of the DEA-SEMAR relationship:
“DEA has always worked very well with SEMAR. They’re more responsible than the Guardia Nacional or the Army.”
U.S. distrust in the Army persists to this day. It deepened after the United States arrested former defense secretary Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos was detained on drug trafficking and corruption charges upon arriving a LAX with his family for a Disneyland vacation in 2019. Mexico successfully petitioned for the charges to be dropped – with Mexican officials, including AMLO, voicing consternation they hadn’t been consulted on the pending arrest.
Then-attorney general William Barr and his Mexican counterpart Alejandro Gertz said in a joint statement that the request for U.S. charges to be dropped were “in the interests of demonstrating our united front against all forms of criminality,” and that Mexico had started its own investigation into Cienfuegos. That Mexican investigation found nothing amiss.
Senior SEDENA brass also mobilized to protect their own, petitioning the president to act. Analysts say SEDENA – a notoriously hermetic organization – had pressure to exert over AMLO: the president has viewed the army as an ally and tasked it with everything from building airports and railways to assuming public security responsibilities to delivering gasoline.
Shortly after the Cienfuegos fiasco, AMLO introduced a law to limit the work of the DEA in Mexico – which was approved. Reuters also reported the Mexican government had withdrawn a place for the DEA to park a plane in Mexico, which was used for transporting U.S. agents and Mexican special units in enforcement actions.
VP HARRIS ASKED AMLO TO ACT ON CARO-QUINTERO INFO?
De Mauleón, the Mexican journalist, reported after the Caro-Quintero arrest that Vice President Kamala Harris surprised AMLO during a breakfast meeting July 12 in Washington with a request to re-capture Caro-Quintero. Citing sources in the Mexican president’s office, de Mauleón wrote in the newspaper El Universal that Harris presented AMLO with information on Caro-Quintero’s whereabouts in the sierra of Sinaloa state. There was one condition, according to de Mauleón:
“The condition imposed by Harris, according to sources in the National Palace, was that the Navy the only Mexican security organization in which the United States trusts, carry out the detention.”
Columnist Raymundo Riva Palacio expanded on the de Mauleón column, writing that Harris told AMLO the U.S. government “was concerned about the public resistance of his government in capturing an extraditing narcotics traffickers sought by the United States.” AMLO, according to Riva Palacio, insisted that Caro-Quintero had been punished and imprisoned in Mexico. He also suggested the National Guard capture Caro-Quintero – something Harris dismissed.
Mexico’s undersecretary for North America in the foreign ministry quickly shot down the suggestion that Harris had asked AMLO to capture Caro-Quintero. Roberto Velasco said in tweet that the topic “wasn’t mentioned” in the breakfast.
KINGPIN STRATEGY ALIVE?
The Navy’s takedown of Caro-Quintero seems to suggest the “kingpin” strategy of targeting cartel leaders appears to be active – even as AMLO continues promoting a stated security strategy of “hugs, not bullets.” The strategy has come under question as capturing and killing kingpins often unleashes spasms of violence as underlings squabble for control of suddenly leaderless cartels. It’s also thought smuggling networks are disrupted – read: public officials need to be paid off – with the elimination of leaders, causing cartels to traffic less drugs and instead freelance in crimes such as kidnap, extortion and auto theft. Security analyst Alejandro Hope noted of Caro-Quintero’s arrest:
“It’s not only that the kingpin strategy is alive and kicking, It’s that the kingpin strategy is driven by U.S. priorities, not Mexican priorities.”
VIOLENCE IN SONORA
Caro-Quintero returned to the underworld after walking out of prison in August 2013 and attempted to reestablish himself in his old haunts of Sinaloa and Sonora, according to analysts. He worked without clashing with established Sinaloa bosses El Mayo and El Chapo’s sons – known as “Los Chapitos” – but eventually came into conflict with them.
After his arrest, disputes broke out over his crime territories in Sonora, according to InSight Crime, the classic pattern after the capture of a kingpin.
Ernst, analyst with the International Crisis Group, saw the Mexican government as going along with the arrest of Caro-Quintero as part of the larger pattern of bilateral relations – rather than seeing his detention as a pressing priority.
“For Mexico, Caro Quintero isn’t really a high-level objective and it kind of contradicts their ‘we’re not going after kingpins anymore,’ and that line that they’re pushing … but the Americans have obviously wanting him and had him as a high priority. So this seems to be the Mexicans engaging in negotiations with and to a degree playing ball vis-à-vis American demands.”
LOS CHAPITOS CAPTURED IN THE CAPITAL
Mexico City authorities captured 14 members of the Los Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel in a July 12 clash on the southern outskirts of the capital, which left two police officers wounded. Authorities seized weapons – including grenades and a .50 calibre Barrett rifle and a machine gun – and freed two persons being held in a warehouse. The detainees were were identified as Los Chapitos by police-style badges worn around their necks with an image of a cartoon mouse – the very same associated with Ovidio Guzmán, the son of El Chapo, who the Sinaloa Cartel mobilized to defend in October 2019 during the “Culiacanazo.” The mobilization ultimately forced soldiers to surrender Ovidio Guzmán,
The arrests raised eyebrows in the capital, where authorities in past administrations have insisted that no drug cartels operate – despite clashes over the years between police and gunmen. Mexico City also has a robust drug-dealing market, which has provoked violence, too.
MEGA COCAINE BUST
The clash with Los Chapitos was followed by the Mexico City authorities making massive cocaine seizure with police stopped two trucks carrying 1,600 kilos of drugs. The drugs arrived via the coast of Oaxaca from South America and were trucked to the capital, where some of the cocaine was to supply local dealers with the rest proceeding onward to the United States, according to Mexico City officials. Citizen security secretary Omar García Harfuch said the drugs were destined for the tough Tepito neighbourhood in central Mexico City. El Universal reported the gang La Union Tepito would store stashes of drugs in “vecindades,” older condominium-style developments in Mexico City.
Intelligence on the cocaine bust in Mexico City came from … the United States, according to reporting by Jacobo García of the Spanish newspaper El País. While the Navy remains the preferred security partner for the United States, information is sometimes shared with police forces. García wrote:
“The origin of the information was generated in Colombia thanks to field work and a service of intercepted calls between cartel leaders.”
MEXICO’S MURDER RATE DECLINES – SLIGHTLY
The AMLO administration boasts often of public security success – backed by the AMLO bromide: “Hugs, not bullets,” which he repeats ad nauseam as a supposed security strategy.
Public security and citizen protection secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez presented what the government considers proof of an improving public security picture: homicides declining 13.4% percent since the all-time high registered three years earlier in July 2018. (AMLO took office in December 2018.) Other crimes have fallen, too, according to the government, including kidnapping, which has dropped by 73% since January 2019 and auto theft, which has diminished by 47.3%.
The numbers seem hard to square, however. As James Bosworth points out in the Latin American Risk Report, the president’s constant proclamations of “hugs, not bullets” somehow working and the federal government speaking of improving security situation comes amid a steady stream of awful anecdotes suggesting the contrary.
Twelve journalists have been murdered in 2022, making Mexico the most dangerous country for media workers outside of a war zone.
Two Jesuit priests and a tour guide they were sheltering were murdered in their parish in Chihuahua state – with the alleged assailant being a notorious crime boss operating with impunity. The crime boss’ reach was such that federal officials said he took 10% of the copper being hauled out of a Canadian-owned mine in the territory he controlled.
A woman in suburban Guadalajara was doused in alcohol and burned alive by a person supposedly bothered by a her autistic son making too much noise.
The federal government later celebrated numbers from National Geography and Statistics Institute (INEGI) showing a 3.2% decline in the homicide rate during 2021, when compared to 2020. Mexico’s homicide rate hovers around 28 murders per 100,000 people, roughly four times higher than the U.S. homicide rate. “I’m going to show a graphic on the national homicide rate during this administration, because I’m going to be repeating and repeating this even though it sounds like a broken record,” AMLO said while showing the statistics in his July 26 press conference. He blamed the spike in homicides on – who else? – former president Felipe Calderón for launching a militarized crack down on drug cartels (after winning the close 2006 election that AMLO has never conceded.)
“They say: ‘How barbarous! it’s never been higher.’ Well, yes. But where did they leave us and where do we have it now? Nine per cent lower and we’re going to continue lowering it.”
FEW MURDERS, BUT MORE DISAPPEARANCES?
Several analysts and journalists have posited that amid the seeming decline in homicides has come a rise in disappearances – with criminal groups disappearing rivals and victims at large. Adrián López Ortiz, editor of the Sinaloa newspaper Noroeste, noted in an investigation, “Fewer homicides doesn’t necessarily mean less violence.” He aslo noted the murder rate in Sinaloa was the lowest in 14 years, but, since 2018, disappearances – often given short shrift by the authorities – were on the rise.
“From January until April 2022, we have 2.79 reports of disappearances (daily) and 1.31 reports of homicide daily in the state. That’s to say there are more than twice as many disappeared as murdered in Sinaloa.”
Analyst Falko Ernst, senior Mexico analyst with the International Crisis Group, has observed a similar trend of disappearance rising, while homicides decrease.
“In certain high conflict regions, it’s simply now the game of staying in the good books with the federal government by hiding the people being killed.”
“Everyone, including the (local) administration and including the groups themselves … say (the lower homicide rate) has nothing to do with public policy at all. It depends on the stability or instability of the pacts between these groups on the ground and those are fragile.”