Those who are older may remember the story of Enrique Camarena, a DEA agent who while in Mexico was snitched out by members of Mexican police to drug cartels where he was abducted, tortured, and executed.
Four people were tried and found guilty in the conspiracy. However, one of the torturers, Ezequiel Godinez Cervantes, escaped and has been on the run ever since.
In a story out of Mexico, Cervantes was picked up by Mexican police and is being prepared to be extradited to the US to face charges for the crime and others at 77 years of age:
After 34 years, another of those involved in the kidnapping of DEA agent Enrique Kiki Camarena, was arrested.
This is Ezequiel Godinez Cervantes, 77, who is accused by US authorities of being one of the kidnappers and torturers of the agent. The detainee was a member of the Guadalajara Cartel headed by Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, Rafael Caro Quintero and Ernesto Carillo Fonseca.
The three capos were also arrested for the kidnapping and murder of agent Camarena. The kidnapping and murder occurred in 1985 and Godinez Cervantes was arrested just last week. According to US media, Godinez Cervantes was also accused of the murder of two Americans who, without supposedly knowing it, went to a restaurant where drug traffickers gave a party in Guadalajara in 1985.
The victims were Albert Radelat and John Walker of Minnesota, who were stabbed with ice picks and beaten to death.
Presumably, the Americans were killed because the drug traffickers believed they were anti-drug agents.
Godinez was also identified in the kidnappings and murders of four Jehovah’s Witnesses in the streets of Guadalajara, while they were selling religious books from door to door, but he was never charged.
The Secretary of Public Safety of Baja California announced that he was captured by agents of the State Investigative Police, in the Luis Donaldo Colosio neighborhood in Mexicali.
According to the Public Security Secretariat of the State of Baja California, the arrest was made due to the exchange of information between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the state corporation, which indicated that Ezequiel crossed the border with Mexico to take refuge in the capital of the state. state, for which his cooperation was requested to achieve his capture.
For this reason an operation was deployed in coordination with the National Institute of Migration (INM), where based on the information provided by the US authorities, it was determined that said subject was on José Luis Gallegos Avenue and Capitán Pedro Amezcua Street. Rodríguez, in the Luis Donaldo Colosio neighborhood in the state capital.
The defendant was arrested in compliance with an arrest warrant for the crime of kidnapping and for conditional violation of freedom.
He placed himself at the disposal of the immigration authorities for his deportation and handed over to the authorities of the United States to be tried according to his laws.
For the murder of the DEA agent and the pilot Alfredo Zavala Alvear, the leaders of the Guadalajara Cartel are sentenced.Ernesto Carrillo Fonseca, Don Neto, is serving house arrest; and Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo is imprisoned in a maximum security center.
Rafael Caro Quintero was released on August 9, 2013 after obtaining an injunction, but he has an arrest warrant and the United States government offers a reward of $ 5 million for information that leads to his capture.
The three were sentenced to 40 years in prison and the payment of 20 million 810 thousand pesos.
Don Neto obtained the house arrest in June 2016 and is serving his sentence in a house in the State of Mexico.
The drug trafficker obtained the house arrest due to his senility and severe impairment of his physical and mental faculties, for which he was declared by experts as mentally handicapped with no chance of recovery.
Felix Gallardo ends his sentence in the Puente Grande prison in Jalisco.
Last year his lawyers requested the house arrest but it was denied by the judge.
The capo suffers from hearing loss, trauma to the right eye, lens dislocation and glaucoma.
Caro Quintero remains fugitive despite the operations implemented by Mexican and US authorities to locate him.
Two years after being released, in 2015, the First Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation revoked the sentence for which he had been released.
The magistrates declared him responsible for the crimes of unlawful deprivation of liberty in the manner of kidnapping, and of qualified homicide, and ordered the immediate re-apprehension.
Caro Quintero was acquitted of the crimes of qualified homicide, illegal deprivation of the freedom of the workers of the ranches “El Búfalo”, “Los Juncos” and “Montesco”.
Since last year, the FBI has included him in the list of the 10 most wanted fugitives and offers a reward of 20 million dollars.
In April 2018, the District Attorney for the Eastern District of New York announced the unblocking of an additional indictment against Caro Quintero.
The US government says its role as leader of a criminal group continues.
The indictment points to leadership in the trafficking of methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine and marijuana in the United States and its criminal activities between 1980 and 2017. (source)