Mexico on Thursday extradited 29 cartel figures including notorious drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero to the United States, a bold move by President Claudia Sheinbaum as her government faces pressure from the Trump administration to do more to combat transnational drug trafficking.
In addition to Caro Quintero — the convicted murderer of United States DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena — the Mexican government sent various other imprisoned cartel operatives to the United States, including brothers Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales (Z-40) and Omar Treviño Morales (Z-42), both leaders of Los Zetas, and Antonio Oseguera Cervantes, the brother of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
The United States Department of Justice said in a statement that many of the 29 defendants “were subject to longstanding U.S. extradition requests.”
It said that the Mexican government elected to transfer them to the United States “in response to the Justice Department’s efforts pursuant to President Trump’s directive” in a recent executive order “to pursue total elimination of these Cartels.”
The Justice Department said the suspects face charges in districts around the country relating to racketeering, drug-trafficking, murder, illegal use of firearms, money laundering and other crimes.
Attorney General Pamela Bondi said, “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.”
Mexico’s Security Ministry and the Federal Attorney General’s Office said in a joint statement that the extraditions were part of the “work of coordination, cooperation and bilateral reciprocity within the framework of respect for the sovereignty of both nations.”
The United States government last week designated six Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Suspects allegedly belonging to five of those cartels — the CJNG, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, the Northeast Cartel and La Nueva Familia Michoacana — were flown to the U.S. on Mexican military planes on Thursday.
The 29 defendants were taken from prisons to the Felipe Ángeles International Airport north of Mexico City, from where they flew to eight cities in the United States, including New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
If convicted, six of the defendants including Caro Quintero could face the death penalty, according to the U.S. Justice Department. Ioan Grillo, a Mexico-based journalist who specializes in organized crime, questioned whether “a death penalty waiver” was not signed before the extraditions took place. He also questioned the legality of the extraditions.
For anyone who didn’t get it, the mass extradition of 29 narcos from Mexico to US trampling their appeals and making them eligible for death is a big fucking deal and a huge smack to cartels. Could it be a turning point in Mexico’s cartel wars?
We live in convulsive times.
— Ioan Grillo (@ioangrillo) February 28, 2025
In another post to X, Grillo wrote: “The mass extradition of 29 narcos from Mexico to U.S., trampling their appeals and making them eligible for death is a big fucking deal and a huge smack to cartels.”
“Could it be a turning point in Mexico’s cartel wars? We live in convulsive times,” he added.
Reuters reported that some of those extradited are “aging gang leaders who reigned over international trafficking rings decades ago focused on cocaine and heroin.”
“Others are much younger leaders engaged in moving large quantities of deadly fentanyl into the U.S. more recently,” the news agency added.
The New York Times reported that “the number and significance of the people sent to the United States at the same time made the event one of the most important efforts by Mexico in the modern history of the drug war.”
“This is historical, this has really never happened in the history of Mexico,” Mike Vigil, former DEA chief of international operations, told the Associated Press. “This is a huge celebratory thing for the Drug Enforcement Administration.”
Rafael Caro Quintero, a cartel kingpin who unleashed violence, destruction, & death across the US & Mexico, has spent 4-decades on DEA’s most wanted fugitives list, & today we can proudly say he has arrived in the US where justice will be served!
Read more https://t.co/tvmXPOBAdX pic.twitter.com/5kajikg6Gf— DEA HQ (@DEAHQ) February 28, 2025
In light of the extraditions, Mexican security analyst David Saucedo predicted “a furious reaction by drug trafficking groups against the Mexican state.”
Extraditions coincided with Mexico-US security talks
The extraditions to the United States occurred the same day as top Mexican security officials and Foreign Affairs Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente met with United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other U.S. officials in Washington.
President Sheinbaum said Friday that the meeting was a “very good” one and “the principles of [security] coordination and collaboration were established.”
Since taking office on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump has pressured the Mexican government to do more to stem the flow of narcotics and migrants to the United States, including by pledging to impose a 25% blanket tariff on Mexican exports.
Sheinbaum avoided the imposition of the tariffs this month after agreeing to deploy 10,000 National Guard troops to Mexico’s northern border, but another deadline looms next Tuesday.
Mexican officials are scrambling to reach a new deal to stave off the tariffs, but Trump wrote on Thursday that “the proposed TARIFFS scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect.”
Caro Quintero to face justice in US 40 years after murder of ‘Kiki’ Camarena
Derek S. Maltz, the acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said that among the 29 “fugitive cartel members” who arrived in the United States there is “one name that stands above the rest for the men and women of the DEA — Rafael Caro Quintero.”
“Caro Quintero, a cartel kingpin who unleashed violence, destruction and death across the United States and Mexico, has spent four decades atop DEA’s most wanted fugitives list, and today we can proudly say he has arrived in the United States where justice will be served,” Maltz said.
“This moment is extremely personal for the men and women of DEA who believe Caro Quintero is responsible for the brutal torture and murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena,” he said.
BOOM – Video just sent said to be Rafael Caro Quintero arriving in New York. pic.twitter.com/TQD99jQyE6
— Ioan Grillo (@ioangrillo) February 28, 2025
“It is also a victory for the Camarena family. Today sends a message to every cartel leader, every trafficker, every criminal poisoning our communities: You will be held accountable. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far you run, justice will find you,” Maltz said.
Caro Quintero, 72, spent 28 years in jail for the 1985 murder of Camarena before his 40-year sentence was cut short in 2013 after it was ruled that he was improperly tried in a federal court when the case should have been heard at the state level. The Supreme Court later upheld the 40-year sentence, but by then the drug lord had disappeared.
Caro Quintero, founder of the now-defunct Guadalajara Cartel, was recaptured in northern Mexico in July 2022.
He was extradited to New York on Thursday and was scheduled to appear in court on Friday.
The complete list of defendants sent to the US
Among the other cartel figures extradited to the United States on Thursday were Andrew Clark, a Canadian citizen nicknamed “El Dictador” (The Dictator), Carlos Alberto Monsiváis “Bola” Treviño, a Northeast Cartel leader arrested last September, and Vicente Carillo Fuentes, brother of the deceased Juárez Cartel leader Amado Carillo Fuentes, known as “El Señor de los Cielos” (The Lord of the Skies).
The full list of those extradited on Thursday appears below. Their cartel affiliation — as reported by the El Financiero newspaper — is in parentheses.
- CANOBBIO INZUNZA, Jose Angel (Sinaloa Cartel)
- VALENCIA GONZÁLEZ, Norberto (Beltrán Leyva Cartel)
- MARÍN SOTELO, Alder — “Alleged to have participated in the 2022 murder of Deputy Sheriff Ned Byrd,” according to the Department of Justice.
- CRUZ SÁNCHEZ, Evaristo (Gulf Cartel)
- GARCÍA VILLANO, José Alberto (Gulf Cartel)
- HERNÁNDEZ LECHUGA, Lucio (Los Zetas)
- PÉREZ MORENO, Ramiro (Los Zetas)
- RODRÍGUEZ DÍAZ, Miguel Ángel (Los Zetas)
- VILLARREAL HERNÁNDEZ, José Rodolfo (Beltrán Leyva Cartel)
- CARO QUINTERO, Rafael (Guadalajara Cartel)
- CARRILLO FUENTES, Vicente (Juárez Cartel)
- CABRERA CABRERA, José Bibiano (Sinaloa Cartel)
- CLARK, Andrew (CJNG)
- INFANTE, Héctor Eduardo (Los Rusos/Sinaloa Cartel)
- LIMÓN LÓPEZ, Jesús Humberto (Sinaloa Cartel)
- TAPIA QUINTERO, José Guadalupe (Sinaloa Cartel)
- TORRES ACOSTA, Inez Enrique (Sinaloa Cartel)
- GALAVIZ VEGA, Jesús (Los Zetas)
- MÉNDEZ ESTEVANE, Luis Geraldo (Los Azteacs/La Línea/Juárez Cartel)
- MONSIVÁIS TREVIÑO, Carlos Alberto (Northeast Cartel)
- ALGREDO VÁZQUEZ, Carlos (CJNG)
- LÓPEZ IBARRA, Rodolfo (Beltrán Leyva Cartel)
- OSEGUERA CERVANTES, Antonio (CJNG)
- RANGEL BUENDÍA, Alfredo (Los Zetas)
- TREVIÑO MORALES, Miguel Ángel (Los Zetas/Northeast Cartel)
- TREVIÑO MORALES, Omar (Los Zetas)
- VALENCIA SALAZAR, Erick (Los Mata Zetas/CJNG)
- MÉNDEZ VARGAS, Jesús (La Familia Michoacana)
- PALACIOS GARCÍA, Itiel (CJNG)
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