Who is Rafael Caro Quintero? Mexico sends drug lord to US after officials meet Donald Trump’s team

Amidst US President Donald Trump administration turns up the pressure on drug trafficking organizations, reports arrived that Mexico sent 29 drug cartel figures, including drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was behind the killing of a U.S. DEA agent in 1985, to the United States, reported AP.

According to the report, the show of security cooperation arrived 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.

All the 29 drug cartel figures sent to the US on Thursday were brought from prisons across Mexico to board planes at an airport north of Mexico City that took them to eight US cities, AP quoted the Mexican government as saying.

Among them were members of five of the six Mexican organized crime groups designated earlier this month by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration as “foreign terrorist organizations.”

Drug cartel figures sent to the US:

Apart from Rafael Caro Quintero 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 were sent to the US.

A former leader of the Juarez drug cartel, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, based in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, and brother of drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes, was among those turned over to the U.S.

According to prosecutors in both countries, the prisoners sent to the U.S. 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 honor 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," AP quoted the US Attorney General Pamela Bondi saying in a statement.

With agency inputs.