Want to make 20 million dollars? All you have to do is provide the FBI with information leading to
the arrest of Rafael Caro Quintero. How hard could it be? Well, don’t quit your day job just yet.
Today on Nutty History, we’re covering the Most Wanted Narco - Rafael Caro Quintero,
the Cartel Kingpin who’s been on the run from the U.S. and Mexican authorities
for the past eight years. And the murder of a DEA agent that made him the FBI’s most wanted man.
If you’ve binged through Narcos: Mexico, there’s no doubt you can recall “Rafa”
as one of the most memorable, charming, erratic, and violent characters of the show.
Rafa may be a sidekick to Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, but he’s got main character energy.
In the show, it’s Rafa who takes the heat and end up being imprisoned for the...spoiler
alert...brutal and devastating murder of DEA Agent Kiki Camarena. But as for
the real Rafael Caro Quintero, the story didn’t end there. Or even behind bars.
In real life, this “Narco of Narcos” remains on the FBI’s most wanted fugitive list, with a 20
million dollar reward for information leading to his capture. That’s a lot of dough. In fact,
it’s the highest reward amount for any of the ten most wanted, by a long shot. Somebody really
pissed off the U.S. government. Caro Quintero’s ties to the drug business started early and
young. Born in Sinaloa, Rafael was the oldest of twelve children, and his father was killed in a
drug dispute when Rafa was just fourteen years old. Caro Quintero started growing mary jane,
eventually making it his full time job to earn enough money to support his family.
Once he made it to kingpin status, his brothers and sisters worked for him,
and he partnered up with two of his uncles. His first wife, Maris Elizabeth Elenes Lerma,
was the daughter of a trafficking family as well. This operation was all in the family.
Caro Quintero quickly became a rising star in the Mexican drug industry,
forming the infamous Guadalajara Cartel with Gallardo and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo,
AKA “Don Neto.” Part of his success was due to planting a new kind of aloe vera,
known as sinsemilla. Literally meaning “without seeds” in Spanish, Caro Quintero wasn’t the first
to actually grow the higher quality bud. But he was the first to produce it on a large scale,
growing the latest and greatest Mary Jane in huge fields in Mexico’s northern deserts,
and giving the Guadalajara cartel more profit and power than ever before. And the money wasn’t
just of the green variety. As the DEA began to crack down on Florida as an import hub
for Columbian Coke, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo saw an opportunity. The Guadalajara Cartel was
the first to team up with the Columbian cartels to traffic blow into the U.S.,
giving them much higher margins than marijuana. But as the saying goes, mo money, mo problems.
As the operation grew during the late 70’s and 80’s, Rafa,
like his on-screen counterpart, lived the high life of a Sinaloa kingpin.
In her book Desperados, Elaine Shannon describes the crazy day to day elements
of the trafficking life: surrounded by bodyguards carrying automatic weapons,
suitcases overfilled with cash, and debaucherous parties that might turn violent at any time.
The real life Rafa was also quite the womanizer. In Narcos, he has a tumultuous affair with “Sofia”
the daughter of a high up family. In real life, Rafael Caro Quintero did have an illicit affair
with 17-year-old Sara Cosio, who was the niece of the president of Mexico’s PRI
political party. Like on the show, Rafael “kidnapped” her and a manhunt ensued,
though how willing or unwilling of a participant she was isn’t known.
The two did continue their relationship, though, up until Rafael was captured in 1985.
Before his capture, though, Rafa racked up a pretty messed up rap sheet. When two American
tourists, John Clay Walker and Albert Radelat, happened to stop into a restaurant where Caro
Quintero was hosting a private party, they were truly in the wrong place at the most wrong time
possible. Most likely paranoid that the two were undercover DEA agents,
Rafael allegedly tortured these two random men with ice picks before eventually
murdering them. His suspicions weren’t totally off, though.
The DEA was very much onto the Guadalajara Cartel, and Caro Quintero was none too pleased about it.
The year prior, in 1984, the DEA and the Mexican Army raided Rancho Bufalo, a 2,500 acre ranch
where Quintero was growing his ganja. The Mexican authorities burned a reported 10,000 tons of
marijuana, totalling about 160 million dollars. Dude, where’s my bud? The highly successful
raid was thought to be pulled off in part from information provided by DEA agent Kiki Camarena.
And while a lot of fingers have been pointed in various directions, in 1985,
Agent Camarena was kidnapped, savagely tortured for information, and murdered,
allegedly by members of the Guadalajara cartel out for revenge, including Rafael Caro Quintero.
Shortly after Camarena’s murder, Caro Quintero fled to Costa Rica, because that’s not suspicious
at all. He brought along Sara Cosio, bribing the Mexican Judicial Police Chief $300K to let
them leave on a private jet. In Costa Rica, Caro Quintero rested in his mansion until Cosio made
the mistake of phoning home. The call was traced and Rafael was extradited back to Mexico, where
he was sentenced to 40 years in prison as the ringleader behind Kiki’s kidnapping and murder.
So how does a locked up man end up on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted? Rafael Caro Quintero did spend 28
years in a Mexican prison. But in 2013, the court ruled that the drug lord was tried improperly in
the federal court for what were actually state charges. And just like that, he was released. The
United States government was furious that the man who’d murdered a federal agent was out on release,
not to mention his many other alleged crimes that he’d never been tried for. After an outcry from
their Northern neighbors, a subsequent arrest warrant was issued a few days later. But at
that point, Rafa was already in the wind. The U.S. government put such a hefty reward on Rafael Caro
Quintero in part because they claim he’s now the leader of the Caborca Cartel. If captured,
the U.S. could seek extradition. Rafael and his lawyers, however, claim he has no part in the drug
trade currently, and that he’s insolvent. Beyond that, in an interview with the Huffington Post,
Caro Quintero claims that he was never a high up cartel leader but just a mere marijuana dealer,
years ago. According to his guards, he spends his days camping out in the Mexican mountains, never
sleeping in the same spot twice, and constantly scanning overhead for drones. Will he continue
to elude capture for the rest of his days? Or will that reward money finally be earned? Let us know
what you think in the comments, along with what other nutty history you’d like to hear about next.