///by Franco Escobar
Rafael Caro Quintero
The Mexican Don of All Dons is back on the streets. Multiple U.S. law enforcement sources tell CBS News that Rafael Caro Quintero, the grandfather of Mexican drug trafficking, has been released from prison after being locked up for the past 28 years for the 1985 kidnapping and murder of Enrique Camarena, a special agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Caro Quintero won his freedom following a Mexican appeal court’s decision to overturn his conviction, ruling he was improperly tried in federal court for a crime that should have been treated as a state offense. His 40 year sentence for Camarena’s murder was thrown out.
The 61-year-old kingpin founded a powerful cartel based in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa that later split into some of Mexico’s largest cartels, including the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels. Caro Quintero targeted Camarena after finding out the agent was responsible for a raid on his 220-acre marijuana plantation in central Mexico named “Rancho Bufalo” – Buffalo Ranch. As a result, authorities seized up to five tons of marijuana, costing Caro Quintero and his colleagues an estimated $8 billion in lost sales.
Caro Quintero’s assassins kidnapped Camarena on Feb. 7, 1985, in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state and a major drug trafficking center. His body and that of his Mexican pilot, both showing signs of torture, were found a month later, buried in shallow graves.
