By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Mexican drug lords faced criminal charges in the U.S. on Friday, with some looking at a possible death penalty, as court proceedings commenced and the defendants’ lawyers accused Mexico of failing to follow legal procedures with forced expulsions.
First to face U.S. justice is Rafael Caro Quintero, labeled a bloodthirsty cartel boss by prosecutors after he spent decades in Mexican prison for the murder of a U.S. DEA agent. Caro Quintero was set to face his arraignment in a New York court on Friday afternoon on drug trafficking charges that could trigger a death sentence.
The White House called him “one of the most evil cartel bosses” on Friday. The statement cited an order issued last month by U.S. President Donald Trump labeling several Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations.
On Thursday, Mexico’s government expelled Caro Quintero and 28 other suspected cartel members as part of its biggest handover in years. Trump had threatened to order 25% tariffs on Mexican goods starting on March 4 over slow progress on stemming fentanyl as well as U.S.-bound migrant flows.
Caro Quintero is expected to make his first court appearance around 1:00 p.m. EST (1800 GMT) before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Levy in Brooklyn.
Thursday’s mass transfer featured mostly aging gang leaders such as Caro Quintero, the 72-year-old co-founder of the Guadalajara Cartel, who reigned over Mexico’s criminal underworld decades ago.
While some of the other drug lords likely continued to run criminal rackets from behind bars, according to security analysts, Mexico’s volatile gangland leadership has mostly moved on.
The handover included some relatively younger leaders accused of moving large quantities of fentanyl into the U.S.
Caro Quintero spent 28 years in prison in Mexico after being convicted of murdering former DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, one of the most notorious killings in Mexico’s narco wars.
He denied involvement in Camarena’s murder and was released in 2013 on a technicality. He was indicted in absentia in Brooklyn federal court in 2020 on drug trafficking and weapons charges, and recaptured by Mexican authorities in 2022.
The violent story of the capo and murdered DEA agent featured prominently in Netflix’s 2018 “Narcos Mexico” series.
In a court filing ahead of Caro Quintero’s arraignment, prosecutors asked Levy to detain him pending trial, pointing to his ordering the murder of Camarena. The filing notes that Caro Quintero believed Camarena was responsible for the seizure of a ranch he owned in Mexico near the U.S. border.
FORCED TRANSFERS
Caro Quintero will appear in the same Brooklyn courthouse where notorious Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was convicted on drug trafficking charges in 2019. Guzman is serving a life sentence at a maximum-security U.S. prison.
U.S. prosecutors accuse Caro Quintero of directing marijuana and cocaine shipments while he was behind bars, and returning to drug trafficking after his 2013 release. He later developed networks to ship drugs across the U.S., according to the filing.
If convicted, Caro Quintero could face a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison or even the death penalty.
“To protect his operation, the defendant used violence freely,” the prosecutors wrote, adding that he ordered beatings and executions of those suspected of stealing or disloyalty.
Also appearing in Brooklyn federal court on Friday will be Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, accused of being the one-time Juarez Cartel boss. While that cartel is largely inoperative now, he was charged in 2019 with drug trafficking and ordering the murders of rival cartel members.
The other suspects expelled from Mexico on Thursday face charges in other U.S. states or in Washington, D.C.
Lawyers for some of them accuse Mexican authorities of trampling on their clients’ rights, and call their forced transfer to U.S. custody blatantly illegal.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, another five of the alleged gang leaders could also face the death penalty. In the past, such a sentence has almost always been prohibited as part of legal extradition deals between U.S. and Mexican officials. Mexico prohibits state-ordered executions.
Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma, a defense lawyer in New York who has handled international drug trafficking cases, argues that any violation by Mexican authorities of the defendants’ right to contest their expulsion would not interfere with their prosecution in the U.S.
“Once Mexico delivers them here, there’s absolutely no issue for the U.S. prosecutors – unfair as that might seem,” he said.
Meanwhile, the politically charged criminal case against another senior Mexican drug lord, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, has been proceeding in New York also.
Until he was turned over to U.S. agents last year by a son of Guzman, Zambada was arguably Mexico’s top fugitive drug lord.
Since last July, the Mexican government has unsuccessfully sought his extradition back to Mexico.
Zambada, the co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel alongside Guzman, is also awaiting a U.S. trial. A lawyer for the septuagenarian Zambada told Reuters this week he would be willing to plead guilty if he is spared the death penalty.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Gerry Doyle, Alistair Bell and David Gregorio)
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