His biggest mistakeĪt the end of the 1970s, Caro Quintero allied with Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo (“El Jefe de Jefes”) and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, in what was known as the Guadalajara Cartel, one of the first organizations dedicated to drug trafficking in Mexico. I was an orphan, my father died, I was 14 years old and I had to feed my brothers, that’s how it all started,” he told Proceso magazine in 2016. “I was a very young person who lived here in the sierra, here it is normal to grow marijuana and poppy (the raw material for heroin). Like other drug lords, Caro Quintero justified his incursion into crime on the grounds of poverty and lack of opportunities. He was also known for his business savvy and his ability to move in the underworld.Īt the age of 14, he started growing marijuana in his native Badiraguato (Sinaloa), the birthplace of another of Mexico’s biggest drug traffickers, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States.Ī prison in that country could also be the final destination of the so-called “Narco of Narcos”, who is wanted for extradition for the murder of DEA agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena in 1985. agent ‘Kiki’ Camarena.Ħ9 years old and arrested on Friday by the Mexican military in the state of Sinaloa (northwest), Caro Quintero was known for his ostentation, with a weakness for jewelry and fine clothes. Although he paid with jail for part of his guilt, a shadow does not stop following him: the murder of U.S. Master and lord of marijuana in the 1980s, Rafael Caro Quintero is one of Mexico’s historic drug lords.