14 useless in Black Hawk chopper crash in Mexico after drug lord’s arrest

Mexico’s Navy mentioned on Friday that 14 individuals had been killed and one other individual was injured after a Black Hawk navy helicopter crashed within the northern state of Sinaloa.

The reason behind the crash is being investigated, however to this point there is no such thing as a info indicating the incident was associated to the arrest of drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero in one other a part of Sinaloa on Friday, the Navy mentioned in a press release.

On Friday, the Navy captured infamous drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, convicted for the homicide and torture of a US anti-narcotics agent in 1985.

The kingpin rose to prominence as a co-founder of the Guadalajara Cartel, considered one of Latin America’s strongest drug trafficking organizations through the Eighties, and was among the many most prized targets for US officers.

The US authorities hailed the arrest, and mentioned it could waste no time in requesting his extradition. “This is huge,” White House senior Latin America adviser Juan Gonzalez mentioned on Twitter.

The Mexican Navy mentioned in a press release Caro Quintero was caught within the municipality of Choix within the northwestern state of Sinaloa, considered one of Mexico’s drug-trafficking heartlands.

He was present in shrub land by a military-trained feminine bloodhound named Max, the Navy mentioned.

The arrest in San Simon, Choix, comes after strain from the United States, in keeping with a Mexican official, and the identical week that President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador met with US President Joe Biden in Washington.

Caro Quintero spent 28 years in jail for the brutal homicide of former US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, probably the most infamous killings in Mexico’s bloody narco wars. The occasions, dramatized within the 2018 Netflix collection “Narcos: Mexico,” led to a nadir in US-Mexico co-operation in a five-decade “war on drugs.”

Caro Quintero has beforehand denied involvement within the killing of Camarena. He was launched in 2013 on a technicality by a Mexican choose, embarrassing the earlier authorities.

He shortly went underground and returned to trafficking as a part of the Sinaloa Cartel, in keeping with U.S. officers, who put him on the FBI’s Top 10 most wished fugitives listing and put a $20 million bounty on his head, a report for a drug trafficker.

Last 12 months, he misplaced a remaining enchantment towards extradition to the United States. He will likely be extradited as shortly as attainable, one other Mexican official mentioned.

“It is probably one of the most important captures of the last decade in terms of importance to the DEA,” mentioned Mike Vigil, the DEA’s former chief of worldwide operations.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland mentioned he would search Caro Quintero’s rapid extradition.

“There is no hiding place for anyone who kidnaps, tortures, and murders American law enforcement. We are deeply grateful to Mexican authorities for their capture and arrest of Rafael Caro-Quintero,” Garland mentioned in a press release.

While the 69-year-old Caro Quintero is now not thought-about a serious participant in worldwide drug trafficking, the symbolic impression of his seize is critical.

For Mexican safety skilled Alejandro Hope, the arrest pointed to vital cooperation between the United States and Mexico regardless of current clashes over safety. “This type of capture is unthinkable without the participation of the DEA,” he mentioned.

Mexico’s unwillingness to extradite Caro Quintero to the United States earlier than his launch from jail had been a supply of pressure between the 2 international locations. A US official mentioned Washington was very desperate to have him extradited.

“This will hopefully start to mend the frayed relationship between the United States and Mexico in terms of combating drug trafficking,” mentioned former DEA official Vigil.

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