EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The government of Mexico has made good on last year’s promise to hand over to U.S. authorities the nephew and alleged associate of jailed drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero.
Mexican officials at the Toluca International Airport turned over Rodrigo Omar Paez Quintero to U.S. agents so he can face federal conspiracy drug charges in Arizona, the Mexican Attorney General’s Office said in a statement Sunday.
Mexico arrested Paez, a.k.a. “El R,” in the state of Jalisco in April 2023 for allegedly being a leader of a drug-trafficking organization based in Caborca, Sonora, founded by Caro Quintero. Paez allegedly supervised illicit activities and laundered money for the so-called Caborca cartel headed by his uncle between 2017 and 2019, the AG’s Office said.
A Mexican judge last year authorized Paez’s extradition. Paez contested the order and exhausted his appeals earlier this month.
Another Caro Quintero nephew, Ismael Quintero Arellanes, was extradited to the United States from Mexico on March 1, 2023, to face charges of conspiring to distribute heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana. He was arraigned a day later in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
Caro Quintero was re-arrested in Mexico in 2022 after a Mexican judge in 2013 threw out his conviction and a 40-year sentence on murder and kidnapping charges in connection to the death of U.S. Drug Administration Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena in 1985.
The agent’s slaying marked a low point in U.S.-Mexico relations. It also inspired the creation of Red Ribbon Week anti-drug campaign in the United States.
A U.S. extradition request is pending for the drug lord.
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