Mexico sent 29 drug cartel figures, including drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was behind the killing of a Drug Enforcement Administration agent in 1985, to the U.S. behind the killing of a U.S. as the Trump administration turns up the pressure on drug trafficking organizations, the Associated Press reports. The unprecedented show of security cooperation comes as top Mexican officials are in Washington trying to head off the Trump administration’s threat of imposing 25% tariffs on al Mexican imports starting Tuesday. Those sent to the U.S. on Thursday were brought from prisons across Mexico to board planes at an airport north of Mexico City that took them to eight U.S. cities, according to the Mexican government. Among them were members of five of the six Mexican organized crime groups designated this month by President Trump as “foreign terrorist organizations.”
Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, a former leader of the Juarez drug cartel, based in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, and brother of drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes, known as “The Lord of The Skies,” who died in a botched plastic surgery in 1997, was among those turned over to the U.S., The prisoners sent to the U.S. faced charges related to drug trafficking and in some cases homicide. “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,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi. The removal of the drug cartel figures coincided with a visit to Washington by Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente and other top economic and military officials, who met with their counterparts, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio. In exchange for delaying tariffs, Trump insisted that Mexico crack down on cartels, illegal immigration and fentanyl production, despite significant dips in migration and overdoses over the past year. Mexico’s surprise handover of one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives was weeks in the making. Caro Quintero had walked free in 2013 after 28 years in prison when a court overturned his 40-year sentence for the 1985 kidnapping and killing of U.S. DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. The brutal murder marked a low point in U.S.-Mexico relations.
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