Man from La Noria: From Peasant to Kingpin

A smiling Rafael Caro Quintero grants Televisa news crews a interview upon his arrest in 1985 at the Attorney General offices in Mexico City.

Rafael Caro Quintero, the eldest of 11 brothers and sisters, was born on October 24, 1952 at Rancho La Noria, Badiraguato Municipality, Sinaloa. He was the son of Don Emilio Caro Payan (RIP) and Dona Hermenegilda Quintero.

Don Emilio died when Rafael was 14 years old. He had worked in the buying and selling of land on the north coast of Sinaloa. They lived well but like all families had bad times. At age 17, Rafael abandoned La Noria, a village of about 50 homes and about 80 people at that time who mostly raised cattle, to find work to Culiacan, Sinaloa's capital.

He found work as a truck driver for a cattle feed company. This work did not last long as Rafael, who had only a 1st grade education, had cunning and intelligence. And so he devoted his time to cultivating marijuana. The protector and teacher of Caro Quintero, was the infamous drug boss and father of Mexican organized crime, Pedro Aviles Perez, a native of Durango.

Aviles Perez was the drug boss of Sonora, principally working in San Luis Rio Colorado. From him Rafael learned the business and soon began to grow marijuana on ranches in Sonora and Chihuahua. He began to bribe commanders in Sonora and Chihuahua states and was able to build his empire little by little.

When the Clave 7 government hit squad killed Pedro Aviles on September 28, 1978, Rafael was beginning to be a Capo in his own right. Together with his brothers Jose Luis and Miguel Angel, they bought ranches in Caborca, Sonora, and began to plant thousands of hectares of marijuana and poppy to use in the production of heroin. He had already met Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo "Don Neto" and Juan Jose Esparragoza "The Blue." With them they planted marijuana in the center and north of the republic and with his millions, they bribeds commanders, courts and agents of the Federal Judicial Police.

No plantations belonging to them would be destroyed, no government flights would fly over their businesses and ruin anything. That was the deal with the state and local governments. Rafael married to Maria Elena Elenes, sister of his friend and fellow kingpin Eleodoro Elenes "The Culichi." He had four children. At that same time, he began to create the world's largest marijuana growing complex: El Buffalo ranch.

The Buffalo Ranch near Jimenez, Chihuahua had methods of irrigation used in the Imperial Valley of California. Scientists and engineers used super modern methods, in the midst of desolate desert of Chihuahua, to grow thousands of hectares of sinsemilla marijuana. Peasants were brought from Oaxaca, Guerrero, Sinaloa and Sonora in Norte de Sonora buses at night and left in the desert to work in the harvesting.

With the Operation Condor in Sinaloa in 1977, many Sinaloa traffickers shifted their operations centers to the city of Guadalajara, Jalisco. Caro Quintero, along with Fonseca and his partner Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, settled in Jalisco and from there, they operated with little to no interference. Felix Gallardo brought the plane loads of cocaine from the Medellin cartel and Fonseca and Caro and were responsible for planting marijuana in Chihuahua,San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas and Sonora.

Caro Quintero also lent the Nicaraguan Contra rebels his ranches in Jalisco and Veracruz so they could train. The CIA was fully aware of this and did nothing. Perhaps they didnt care, Caro was training anti communist rebels and that was A-OK. Payment were made by Caro for public works, building schools, roads, and introducing electricity to remote villages up and down Sinaloa state.

To reach these isolated villages, nine in total with no access roads, Caro had to use helicopters to bring the poles. Using the same helicopters, the poles were hoisted into place and one by one, the towns of the Sierra Madre, had electricity for the first time ever.

He distributed money among the poor and according to Caro Quintero in his own words: "I did in a short time what the government doesnt do in 10 years". Caro was a true Sinaloan prodigy. But in 1984 the problems started. DEA agents, which had its offices at the American consulate in Guadalajara began to follow and track Caro Quintero, Fonseca and Felix Gallardo's businesses.

Rafael Caro Quintero was known by friends in Sinaloa as a fun-loving womanizer. Villagers would fondly remember when "Rafa" would come to La Noria, on horseback, hapilly firing his machine gun into the air, a Sinaloan Banda trailing behind him playing his favorite songs. They would play for days on end. He would organize parties and he would dance with all the girls.

He often travelled in a convoy of 15 luxury vans, filled with his friends and armen gunmen. One time in Culiacan, a young man crashed his car into Caro's convoy. Armed men threatened him but he tearfully explained that the car had been his friends, lent to him so he could go to work. Caro Quintero upon hearing the story reached into his van, pulled out a suitcase full of cash and gave him a fat wad of cash.

"So that you can buy your friend a new car. And also one for yourself.". The man later realized through the news, years later that his benefactor had been none other than Rafael Caro Quintero.

La Noria became a fortress. He had a house built for his mother, surrounded by a tall perimeteral wall. A lavish mausoleum, with 72 crypts, that would one day house his and his families' remains was erected three times. A very particular Caro would not like the outcome of the mausoleum and would have it destroyed, and rebuilt until the third time, he was satisfied.

He built a school in his hometown, so that children would enjoy an education he never had access to. He named it after his father, Emilio Caro.

In Caborca, his second hometown, he built a palatial home that looked like a castle in the middle of the desert. It was appropiately named El Castillo. The man was very fond of horses and through his younger brothers and other family members he financed various cattle ranches in northern Mexico.

He also bought seven mansions in the posh Jardines del Bosque area of Guadalajara, various ranches in the Altos of Jalisco, including La Herradura in Atequiza, and other homes in Michoacan, Sinaloa and Zacatecas. He also began an impresive project on Avenida Acueducto in Guadalajara. The three story home when completed would have a pool, private zoo and would take up an entire city block.

He laundered his money through legitimate businesses in the city of Guadalajara. He bought several Ford dealerships and was fond of giving away brand new Grand Marquis to his friends in law enforcement and the military. He also bought several Hotels and Motels including the Holiday Inn, along with several seafood and Sinaloan style restaurants.

Back in Guadalajara, the rumors began to surface that in the Chihuahuan Desert was a huge marijuana crop almost ready for harvest. Enrique Camarena Salazar, a Mexican American DEA agent , began to investigate the rumors and in November of that year flew over Buffalo. For the Mexican government of Miguel de la Madrid, the crops or any other, did not exist in Mexico, but the U.S. already had the evidence. Photos and maps indicated that the Buffalo, existed just below the flight path of the Guadalajara-Houston Mexicana Airlines route.

On November 9, 1984, the Mexican army raided El Buffalo and burned 10,000 tons of marijuana. Two other ranches in Sonora and Zacatecas were also destroyed. Hundreds of peasants were arrested but Fonseca and Caro and were nowhere to be found. The monetary loss was estimated in $2 billion dollars.

Felix, Caro and Fonseca met at a party in January 1985 and decided to give Agent Camarena Salazar a warning. On February 5, judicial police under the command of Caro Quintero abducted Agent Camarena in front of the US Consulate in Guadalajara in broad daylight. That same day at the Guadalajara airport, Alfredo Zavala Avelar, a pilot for the Ministry of Agriculture and pilot friend of Camarena who had flown him over El Buffalo also disappeared.

The two men were questioned about what they knew from the Buffalo, Caro, Fonseca and Felix Gallardo's drug businesses , and what Camarena knew about the director of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police, Manuel Ibarra Herrera. Everything was recorded and after two days of torture, they were executed and buried in the Bosque La Primavera forest outside the city.

On February 9 Caro Quintero and his gunmen were intercepted at Guadalajara's Miguel Hidalgo Airport by the Federal comandate, Armando Pavon Reyes, in charge of investigation of the Camarena case. With a greeting and hug, and the promise of 60,000 dollars, Pavon Reyes let Quintero fly out, along with his girlfriend Sara Cristina Cosio Martinez, niece of a high ranking PRI politician in Jalisco.

He flew to Mazatlan, then Caborca, with her and her friend Violeta Estrada. He spent the month of February in hiding and Camarena and Zavala were nowhere to be found. By pressure of the US government and the DEA, they requested Camarena be returned unharmed or at least his body. It was then the killings occurred at El Mareno.

Pavon Reyes, thanks to a mysterious unsigned note received on February 28, 1985, he found the bodies of Camarena and Zavala. They were at the Mareno ranch , municipality of Angostura, Michoacan. On March 2,the Federales entered Rancho El Mareno in search of Camarena and Zavala.

The federal version of the account as follows: upon entering the ranch, they were greeted with bullets by the ranch's owners, the Braves Cervantes, relatives of then governor of Michoacan Cuauhtemoc Cardenas. They were greeted by bursts of gunfire that killed a federal agent who was shot in the skull. The feds then were forced to open fire, killing Manuel Bravo and his wife Celia along with their handicapped son Rigo and 2 other sons who had arrived to help their parents .

The version of the DEA was that Bravo's family was massacred in cold blood, as several of the dead had been shot in the back and some were in their beds as if they had been surprised, and ultimately slaughtered . Zavala and Camarena were not found at El Mareno, but two days later a rancher found 2 black bags containing rotting corpses next to the Zamora - La Barca highway . They were identified as Enrique Camarena Salazar and Alfredo Zavala.

Caro Quintero at the time was in San Jose Costa Rica. He sought to move his business to Costa Rica and there he began to operate again the help of a cousin Jose Ines Calderon Quintero and his right hand man Jose Contreras Subias. On April 5, 1985, he was arrested by the Costa Rican military, with help from the DEA. When he was arrested it was estimated that Caro Quintero's wealth was around $ 650 million dollars, making him one of the richest person in Mexico and the world.

His teenage paramour Sara Cosio had called her parents from Caro's Quinta La California mansion to Guadalajara. DEA intercepted the call and so went the hunt for Caro. Florentino Ventura Gutierrez, commander of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police who replaced Pavon Reyes, was in charge of bringing Caro and his men to prison north of Mexico City where he would face justice.

His dream project on Avenida Acueducto became the focus of the media, and grew abandoned, taken over by the government who eventually tore it down. His homes were confiscated and turned into Drug Rehab centers. A rare one of a kind volcanic stone sphere, found at Quinta La California was donated to the Costa Rican government. Millions in gold jewelry, including his trademark diamond and gold "R-1" bracelet and handgun were kept by the Mexican government and DEA.

Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo was arrested almost by accident on April 10 on a ranch in Puerto Vallarta, owned by Commander Candelario Ramos, Police Chief of Ameca, Jalisco. The two faced charges for the murder of Camarena and were sentenced to 40 years in prison in 1989.

That year Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo was also arrested in his home in Zapopan, Jalisco. The Three Sinaloans, as they were called now by the press, began serving sentences of more than 40 years in Mexican prisons.

Caro Quintero's 4 year stay at Mexico City's Reclusorio Norte prison was not a bad one. He paid good money to have an wing built for 600 prisoners exclusively for himself and his cronies. He had access to private prison patios and fruit trees, had his own chef and didnt have to eat prison food. Only the best meals and meats for the 32 year old kingpin.

He was allowed access to televisions, stereo equipment, fine liquors, clothing and money. He had his own private clinic ready to treat any malady that afflicted Caro. He was also allowed to have lavish birthday parties where he brought the finest Sinaloan brass bands at the time, like Banda La Costena and Los Coyonquis.

Upon discovery of a tunnel leading to Caro's prison penthouse, his priveleges were cut and he was transferred to the new Almoloya de Juarez prison. There he remained until 2005 when he was transferred to Puente Grande prison.

On January 6, 2006, Guadalajara news stations broke the sensational news that the famous kingpin had escaped Puente Grande, as has fellow protege Joaquin Guzman Loera "El Chapo" 5 years before.

The news turned out to be false. CCTV images of a down looking Caro were issued by the prison to show that Rafael, was still indeed a federal guest at Mexico's number two prison. In 2008, he was transferred to Matamoros prison where he joined his brother Miguel Angel, arrested in 2001 in Los Mochis.

Movies about his life were made, books were written and dozens of corridos praising his exploits and career as one of Mexico's founding fathers of the drug trade. To this day, his four children, 2 girls, and 2 boys are in their mid to late 20's. Some are lawyers and the others accountants. According to a 2002 interview with a Mexican newsmagazine, Rafael Caro Quintero is a broken tired man who can only give one piece of advice to the youth of the world:

"Dont mess with drugs".

"Find yourself, build towards your future. If not, then you're worthless" - Rafael Caro Quintero

Jardines del Humaya: Sinaloa's Valley of the Kings

South of the Sinaloan state capital city of Culiacan there is a place famous for its ostentatious mausoleums that resemble small homes.

They are built for a kind of Sinaloan Pharoah: Drug Kingpins.

The Jardines del Humaya cemetary is the final resting place for the who's who of Mexican Organized Crime. Old time kingpins who fell in a hail of police or enemy bullets mixed with the noveau narcos who suffered the same fate.

1970's drug boss Lamberto Quintero Paez, immortalized in Corridos and movies is buried here in a modest glass and concrete crypt. His picture outside the glass doors is surrounded by AR-15 shell casings.

Ex Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Baltazar Diaz Vega who was shot to death by police in Mexico City in 1994 and also praised in the famous corrido "Se Les Pelo Baltazar" is also buried here, his picture showing him in a stetson and riding his beloved horse. Gilberto "El Chapo" Caro Rodriguez, who died in a hail of bullets and grenade blasts in May 1992 also lies nearby, near his aviator nephew Onofre Landell, who was also killed with him.

Gonzalo "Chalo" Araujo; the wife and children of Hector Palma Salazar "El Guero and Arturo Beltran Leyva "El Barbas" also lie here, in Jardines del Humaya. Old time kingpin Jose Ines Calderon Quintero, killed in a 1988 shootout with Federales, and his compadre Ramon Beltran lie side by side in adjacent crypts.

The desceased mafiosos are often buried in mausoleums made of fine stone, some being 2 stories high. One is a minature replica of the Culiacan cathedral. Some cost up to $100,000 dollars.



They have Air Conditioning, lighting, music systems, so that friends and family can enjoy visiting their departed loved ones. Life sized portraits adorn many crypts, showing smiling men holding AK-47s or showing their shiny new pick up or SUV in the background.

Its not rare to hear Norteno trios singing songs and corridos or a Sinaloense banda playing music on the birthday of a fallen narco. Mysterious unsmiling men mill about the cemetary, noting who comes and who goes.



But not everyone who rests here is a narco. Manuel J. Clouthier, PAN presidential candidate in 1988 and Sinaloa native also lays here in Jardines del Humaya. He died in a 1989 car crash.

All in Culiacan's Valley of the Kings, the final resting place for many of Sinaloa's Good Ol' Boys.

The Guadalajara Cartel Part III: The Abduction and Murders of Camarena and Zavala and the Fall of the Cartel

Camarena and Zavala's bodies arrive in Zamora, Michoacan after their discovery- 3/5/85

On the afternoon of February 7, 1985, Special Agent Enrique 'Kiki" Camarena Salazar left the DEA office inside the US Consulate in downtown Guadalajara and walked to his pick up truck for a lunch date with his wife.

He never made it.

Before reaching his truck, outside the Consulate, a light colored Volkswalgen 4 door and a black Grand Marquis with a siren stopped camarena. Some men, known to Camarena as Jalisco state cops got out and told "Kiki" that "El Comandante wants to see you". Camarena told the men he would have to notify his office as was protocol but the men pushed him into the car where the men threw a jacket over his head and beat him with pipes while holding him at gun point. The cars rapidly sped away and got lost in the city traffic.

Almost at the same time, Mexican Ministry of Agriculture pilot and a friend of Camarena's, Alfredo Zavala Avelars plane had touched down at the city's airport. Zavala had taken Camarena on some flights over the Bufalo ranch and other pot farms. Besides a government pilot he was a frequent DEA collaborator. As he worked at the city airport all the time, he would spy on Felix Gallardo's and Caro Quintero's planes and he would report back to Kiki.

That day he had brought home a group of businessmen from Durango and the men offered Zavala a ride home. Shortly after leaving the airport on the Chapala highway to the city, a brown Ford LTD sedan intercepted them and two men armed with AR-15 assault rifled got out and forced Zavala out and into their car. The gunmen took out the businessmen's keys out of their vehicle and threw it into a field. The car sped off with Zavala

The next day after his wife informed the DEA office he had never shown to the lunch date or to the house later that night, Enrique Camarena was declared missing. The DEA agents also quickly learned of Alfredo Zavala's abduction and soon started combing the city for the missing men. They asked the Jalisco state police for assistance and were met by Director Carlos Aceves Fernandez's stonewalling and uninterested attitude. Governor Enrique Alvarez del Castillo also did not call the Consulate and offer assistance in searching for the missing agent.

After their abductions, Camarena and Zavala were taken to Rafael Caro Quintero's home on 881 Lope de Vega street in Zapopan, a Guadalajara suburb. The plan was to have a talk with Camarena and Zavala and find out exactly how much they knew about the Cartel's operations and their partnerships with the state and Mexican government.

While Kiki and Zavala were held at the house, Ernesto Fonseca "Don Neto" came to visit and saw a lot of armed men at the house. When he was informed about Camarena's presence by Caro Quintero, he told Caro he felt ill: too many lemon spirited tequilas had triggered his allergy to citrus and he needed a nap. He would question Camarena after he awoke. After Don Neto had awoken from a drunker stupor, he noticed more armed men at the house, men he didn't recognize as his own or Caro's. By then he didn't feel like talking to Camarena at all and went home.

When he returned on the morning of February 8th, he found Camarena to be barely conscious, he had been the victim of severe torture and was near death. An unknown dead man lay in a laundry room. One of the armed men told Fonseca that the unknown dead man had been a "snitch". Seeing A US agent tortured to near death infuriated Fonseca, who reprimanded Rafael Caro and almost slapped him prompting Caro's men to raise their weapons and Fonseca's men to raise theirs. Fonseca, feeling the repercussions of what had happened and what was about to come, left the house.

Enrique Camarena had been savagely tortured for an entire day. Several times he had passed out from pain and was near death and each time he was revived by shots administered by Dr. Humberto Machain. An unknown military man interrogated Camarena for a day and a half: What did he know about Caro Quintero? Gallardo? Fonseca? What did he know about the Secretary of Defense Juan Arevalo Gardoqui?

A barrage of questions peppered with insults and beatings with fists, sticks and pipes and non fatal yet painful stabbings with ice picks, all of it being taped by his tormentors. Zavala was considered a mere snitch. He had been tortured but killed almost right away. Camarena was the one they wanted.

Sometime on the morning of February 9th, Agent Enrique Camarena Salazar was killed when a tire iron was driven into his skull. The two bodies, in their underwear, bound and gagged and placed in plastic bags were driven out to Primavera Park, a huge forest outside Guadalajara and buried in a pit.

While Camarena lay dead buried in a shallow grave outside the city, his DEA friends searched for their missing colleague. On February 8th, They requested help to Mexico City and Mexican Federal Judicial Police director Manuel Ibarra Herrera. Ibarra then told Comandante Florentino Ventura to commision Primer Comandante Armando Pavon Reyes to be in charge of the search for Camarena and Zavala. Pavon, along with Comandante Lorrabaquio were in the hills of Colima searching for some thugs and would not be available until the following morning

Comandante Pavon Reyes and his contingent of Federales arrived in Guadalajara from Colima state on the morning of February 9th. They had picked up a trace from Felix Gallardo and Caro Quintero saying Felix would deliver money to the Guadalajara airport. The Federales and several DEA agent sped to the airport to catch the narcos.

Upon arriving at Miguel Hidalgo airport, the Federales saw several armed men surrounding a private Falcon business jet preparing for takeoff. After a brief standoff between the armed strangers and the Federales, Comandante Pavon Reyes met with the man seemingly in charge, a tall mustachioed man with thick curly hair, in black cowboy gear and wearing a lot of gold. He flashed Pavon a badge and the two men walked around the jet and talked, the man in black looking back and smiling at the DEA agents who watched incredulously.

Comandante Pavon soon shook hands with the man. Several of Pavon's men also walked over and greeted the man in black. When questioned by the DEA agents who thought surely the man was a trafficker, Pavon told them that the man had been Pedro Sanchez Parra, not a drug trafficker but a DFS agent. His badge had identified him as such.

As the Falcon jet taxied out to the runway, the man in black and wearing gold stuck out his head from the plane's open door and waved an AK-47 to the Federales and DEA agent and shouted: "Next time my children, bring better weapons, not toys!" The man then waved a champagne bottle, took a swig and went back inside the jet and closed the door. The man was Rafael Caro Quintero.

Rafael Caro Quintero had promised Comandante Armando Pavon Reyes, 60 million pesos and had fled Guadalajara to Culiacan where he picked up his teenage girlfriend, Sara Cosio Martinez, niece of a prominent Jalisco PRI politician. They later flew to Caborca, Sonora where Rafael had a huge ranch and waited for the heat to die down.

The entire month of February the investigation went nowhere and Camarena was nowhere to be found. Seeing as how Comandante Pavon had probably already been compromised, the DEA agents asked Mexico City to send top Comandante Florentino Ventura Gutierrez to aid them in the search for their missing comrade. Federales chief Ibarra Herrera denied their request. Pavon's raids on empty mansions and abandoned ranches yielded no results. The arrest of Tomas Morlett Borquez, a crooked cop, was deemed pointless as he and 2 others were quickly released.

A man resembling the bearded and be-speckled Morlett had been seen by eyewitnesses in Lopez Cotija, a Guadalajara suburb inside a black car, beating a man in the back seat around the time of Camarena's abduction. The witness had then later been visited by the same man resembling Morlett and told to keep his mouth shut about what he had seen. After Morlett's release, a photograph of Enrique Camarena had been found at a home belonging to Miguel Felix Gallardo, plates of half eaten food and drinks bearing testament of people who had left the house in a hurry right before the arrival of the Federales. Someone in the Feds was tipping off the traffickers. The DEA agents grew more and more frustrated.

On February 28th, Comandante Pavon Reyes produced a letter, postmarked in Los Angeles, CA, saying that the letter informed his office that Agent Camarena was being held at a ranch in neighboring Michoacan state. Thousands of notes and letters had been sent, all of them phony. One said Camarena was being held in Yahualica, Jalisco. Another that Camarena was being held in an abandoned mine in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. Pavon however, seemed eager to pursue this particular lead. He informed the DEA agents they would raid El Mareno ranch near La Angostura, Michoacan at 9 am 2 days later on March 2nd, pending further investigation and surveillance. The DEA agents were invited by Pavon to participate in the raid.

At 9 am on March 2nd the DEA agents were surprised and angered to find out the Federales, led by Comandante Alfonso Velazquez Hernandez had left the city to Michoacan three hours prior. The Americans quickly hopped on cars and sped to El Mareno ranch, a two hour drive from Guadalajara.

Upon arriving at El Mareno they were met with a horrible scene. Six people were dead. According to the Federales, as they arrived at the ranch they were met with gunfire from the people living at the ranch. Federal Agent Manuel Esquivel had received 13 shots from an AR-15 and the Federales were forced to open fire and engage the attackers.

What followed was a half hour shoot out in which all 5 members of the Bravo family had been killed. Manuel Bravo Cervantes, owner of the ranch, had shot at the Federales. His wife Maria Luisa Segura Vazquez along with their handicapped 11 year old son Rigoberto and their 2 grown sons Hugo and Manuel Bravo Segura had all been armed and refused to surrender and thus had to be killed as well. 2 women were in custody along with 2 other men, believed to be Mrs Bravo's brothers, accused of having arriving in a stolen car full of ammunition.

The four survivors of the massacre at El Mareno told Michoacan state authorities and the news media that the Federales had cut down the family in cold blood. The DEA agents, piecing together the events according to the women, who were the now widows of Hugo and Manuel and a local villager boys eyewitness account the real story went something like this:

The Jalisco Federales had arrived in Michoacan without informing the Michoacan state authorities and had raided El Mareno early the morning of March 2nd. Rigoberto Bravo Segura, the mentally retarded 11 year old son of the Bravos, who slept in a downstairs room, was awakened by men breaking into the house. He shouted to his father, who slept upstairs that armed men were breaking in. The armed men, who were Federales, took Rigoberto hostage, pointed a gun to his head and demanded that Manuel Bravo surrender and come down.

Manuel Bravo, not believing them to be real Federales, saying that he had many enemies, asked to speak to police in the nearby city of Zamora or Vistahermosa, officers he knew personally. His request was denied. Bravo then shot at the men and engaged them in a brief shootout in which Agent Esquivel was killed, probably by friendly fire, before Bravo finally surrendered and came down with his wife. Manuel Bravo and his wife were then promptly shot in cold blood, Maria Luisa receiving shots in the back as she tried to flee. Rigoberto was also killed, his body left on the patio.

Upon hearing the shooting, Maria Luisa's brothers, who lived on the property, had called Hugo and Manuel to their homes in Zamora and the two men raced to El Mareno to aid their parents and brother. They also had their children spending the night there with their favorite uncle, Rigoberto. The two men left to El Mareno while their wives summoned help at the Michoacan state police office. Hugo and Manuel arrived only to find their parents and brother dead and were soon captured by the Federales and slapped around only to be also shot in the head point blank. When their wives arrived with the Michoacan state cops, the women were arrested and the cops told to lay down their arms.

Quickly after the massacre, Comandante Armando Pavon Reyes produced some ammo, some shot guns and assault rifles along with cocaine supposedly found at the ranch. The guns' incomplete serial numbers were given to the US agents when they requested them and the drugs seemed planted at the scene. The whole scene looked like a hit rather than a police action. The Bravo Segura family was billed in the media as a family of drug dealing cop killing kidnappers. A search of the lemon orchards of El Mareno, where the anonymous letter said Camarena would be found buried was delayed pending Agent Esquivel's funeral and burial.

On March 4th, Michoacan state governor Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who just so happened to be a distant relative of Manuel Bravo Cervantes, received a call from an official in Tanhuato, Michoacan informing him that the La Barca- Zamora highway next to El Mareno ranch was again shut down by Jalisco state authorities. The Guadalajara anti-riot police was at El Mareno and men were digging in the orchards looking for Camarena. Once again Jalisco state police had done another unauthorized search at the ranch away from their jurisdiction.

A very angry Governor landed in his helicopter near El Mareno and was not allowed entrance by the Federales, prompting him to voice a complain to the Jalisco state government. The search at El Mareno turned up nothing.

On the afternoon of March 5th, 1985, a rancher walking on a footpath next to El Mareno ranch was assaulted by the strong odor of decomposing flesh and flies buzzing around. He followed his nose to a field, a few yards from the entrance to El Mareno, and found two plastic sacks, one with rotted human legs jutting out. The other had a head sticking out, its mouth wide open and face grimacing in horror. He quickly ran to the nearby village of La Angostura and summoned the constable who hopped on a tractor and headed to to the scene of the grisly discovery only to find several villagers already crowding the bodies and trampling the crime scene. The bodies were placed on a the bed of a pick up truck and transported to the coroners office in Zamora.

A few hours after the discovery of the two badly decomposed and unrecognizable bodies, the Mexican media was already saying that the dead were indeed Enrique Camarena and Alfredo Zavala. The DEA agents in Guadalajara found out through the television about the find, no one had informed them and once again they raced for Zamora. Upon arrival at the Zamora town square, they were met by a huge crowd of people, curious to glimpse at the body of the dead American agent. The US forensic experts after several hours of autopsy and using dental records, finally ID'd the bodies as those of Camarena and Zavala. Both men had been brutally tortured and buried somewhere else and dumped at El Mareno. Both had been dead about a month.

The body dump went awry. The man delivering the bodies to be planted at El Mareno was surely late and seeing the activity at El Mareno, could not dump the bodies in the orchard and opted for leaving the corpses near the footpath near the ranch. The night of March 5th, Comandante Pavon Reyes reportedly told Comandante Everardo Ochoa Bernal to hurry to Zamora, Michoacan because "Camarena would soon be found". Upon arriving in Zamora, Comandante Ochoa found that the bodies had already been found, picked up and transferred to the town morgue.

After the discovery of the bodies, Comandante Pavon Reyes was arrested by Comandante Florentino Ventura who was now in charge of the Camarena investigation on charges of corruption, bribery and obstruction of justice. Ventura also rounded up 13 city and state cops, one of whom, Gabriel Gonzalez, died during interrogation. Ventura said he had died of a hemorrhage, Gonzalez's wife said he had been beaten to death.

Quickly he was piecing together that Camarena had been abducted by local cops paid off by Caro Quintero and Fonseca Carrillo. All of the cops arrested denounced torture and denied knowing anything about the Camarena abduction.

In early April, DEA and the Federales picked up a call from Rafael Caro Quintero's teenage girlfriend Sara Cosio to her parents. The call came from San Jose, Costa Rica. Florentino Ventura and his team quickly flew to Costa Rica and on April 4th, 1985 raided Quinta La California near the airport in San Jose and arrested a group of Mexican nationals and Sara Cosio. One of the man ID'd as Marco Antonio Rios Valenzuela was indeed none other than Rafael Caro Quintero. Caro and his cronies were put on two Mexico Attorney General jets and flown to Mexico City in less than a day, one of Costa Rica's fastest deportations ever. Sara Cosio was returned back to her parents and Cosio announced to the press she had not been abducted but was in love with the married drug lord and was pregnant.

By coincidence three days later, on April 7th, cops responding to a bar fight in the Pacific resort city of Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, followed a group of thugs to a villa and were engaged in a shootout. The municipal cops quickly subdued the thugs and found money and weapons at the home, that belonged to Candelario Ramos, the chief of police of Ameca, Jalisco. They also found a lazy eyed old man who ID'd himself as Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, Don Neto.

Don Neto and his henchmen were put on Norte de Sonora buses, escorted by 14 Army trucks full of soldiers armed to the teeth and driven to La Mojonera air force base in Zapopan where a plane awaited them to take them to prison in Mexico City.

In Mexico City, both Rafael Caro Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca were tortured and forced to confess by Florentino Ventura's men. They were forced to sign confessions but later recanted when they were paraded before the news cameras. Yes, the two men alleged, they were drug traffickers, but they knew nothing of the abduction and murder of the American agent and his pilot. Fonseca contended that he and Caro had been at 881 Lope de Vega, but had left, at the same time a group of unknown armed men arrived at the house. What happened to Camarena after that was unknown to them.

A married Caro Quintero regaled the press with stories about his love for his teenage girlfriend Sara Cosio whom her family had alleged, had been kidnapped by the Sinaloan in March. the Caro-Cosio love affair became media fodder for months. The Mexican public grew enamored with the country boy from La Noria, who had made millions before his 29th birthday and helped out the poor.

"I love to help out the country people, because they are a pure and noble people as I am, and as Ernesto (Fonseca) and his people are, we do things for them the government doesnt do in 10 years. We do it not to get recognition, but because it makes us feel good to help them" Caro told the press after his arrest, while Fonseca clowned around with a pair of sunglasses and flashed photographers a peace sign
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Both men were convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison. There the duo shared a living area designed for 600 prisoners, and made their own penthouse, complete with nice beds, TV's VCRs, liquor, music and good food. They didnt have to wear a prisoners uniform they could wear what they wanted. During their four year stay at Reclusorio Norte, their stay was a good one. Every year on his birthday, Caro Quintero would bring the finest Sinaloan bands to play for him and his friends at the prison all with the director's blessing.

Javier Barba Hernandez, the Cartel's lawyer turned gangster was shot down by soldiers in Mazatlan in November 1987. Tomas Morlett Borquez, a suspect in the Camarena kidnapping was slain outside a Matamoros bar in 1988. Comandantes Pavon Reyes and Alfonso Velazquez, responsible for the disastrous "raid" at El Mareno were both sent to jail for 25 years.

The head of the DFS and a possible Camarena interrogator and torturer, Antonio Zorrilla Perez was also sent to jail after being arrested in Spain. Ramon Mata Ballesteros, Felix Gallardos Honduran partner was jailed in 1986 and extradited to the US where he now incarcerated in Colorado's Super Max penitentiary.

Dr Humberto Machain, responsible for keeping Camarena alive during his brutal interrogation was also arrested in Guadalajara and illegally transported to the US by American agents. Don Ruben Zuno Arce was also tricked into entering the US where he was arrested for his alleged role in the Camarena kidnapping. He was sentenced to life in prison in San Diego. To this day he maintains his innocence.

On September 17, 1988 Comandante Florentino Ventura, who arrested Rafael Caro Quintero was found shot to death at his Mexico City home along with his wife and wife's friend. Authorities said Ventura went into a cocaine fueled rage and shot his wife and her friend before turning the gun on himself. Others say its was the narcos' revenge from behind bars.

Miguel Felix Gallardo, the cocaine kingpin and co founder of the Guadalajara Cartel was betrayed by his friend Comandante Guillermo Gonzalez Calderoni, Ventura's successor on April 8, 1989 and taken into custody at his home in Zapopan, Jalisco. Felix Gallardo also denied any participation in the Camarena kidnapping and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Manuel Salcido Uzeta, "Cochiloco", Kingpin of Mazatlan and last leader of the Guadalajara cartel was ambushed and shot to death on October 9th, 1991 by a 8 man hit team at a red light on Obsidiana Street in Guadalajara. He, his daughter and his driver were shot more than 80 times. He reportedly pulled out a grenade to fend off his attackers with but was killed before he could throw it at them.

Juan Jose Esparragoza "El Azul" was arrested in the late 80s and imprisoned in Reclusorio Sur and was freed in 1992. With the ex leaders of the Guadalajara cartel in prison or dead, he left and partnered up with Ismael Zambada and others where he is now considered one of the leaders of the violent and infamous Sinaloa cartel made up of descendants and proteges of those who ran the old Guadalajara cartel. "El Azul" keeps an extremely low profile, not much is known about his life or modern day activities

The Camarena kidnapping and murder and its messy aftermath sealed the fate for the once powerful Guadalajara Cartel. Its remnants are now seen as coming together and forming the poweful Sinaloan Alliance, the Sinaloa Cartel, led by Felix Gallardo protege turned nemesis Joaquin Guzman Loera "El Chapo"

What was then a "Mans Business" made up by a few peasants from Sinaloa with a lot of business savvy, later turned into a ultra violent billion dollar industry that claims the lives the innocent men, women and children every day in Mexico. Criminals and Law Enforcement officials alike fall dead every day, victims of a seemingly never ending drug war where broken rival factions of a once strong united alliance, fight it out each day for control of Mexican territory.

The Guadalajara Cartel Part I: Birth of Organized Crime in Mexico

criIn the early 20th century, the rural areas of the northern Mexican states of Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Durango were desolate lands. Small villages dotted the Sierra Madre, isolated from civilization. Access to these backwater hamlets were by horse or by mule and trips that would take hours now by car, would take days back then. Their source of life was growing beans and vegetables. If it was a good crop, they would eat. If it was a bad one, they would starve. To eat meat, was a luxury.

After World War I, the Mexican government approached these humble ranchers with a proposition: Grow Opium Poppy on these fertile lands. The poppy is used to make Morphine, which was in dire need for the United States soldiers who came back wounded or the ones who just came back addicted. Poppy however, is also used to create something else much more nefarious and sinister:

Heroin.

The hill folk of the Sierra Madre who during Prohibition made some extra cash bootlegging liquor and sending it up north to the Hooch starved Gringo, now started to grow the Poppy flower. The mountain man of Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Durango soon learned that out of the sticky Opium gum, you can do this, and do that and presto: you have Heroin.

Another notorious herb grew happy and green in these fertile and warm climates: Marijuana. Soon the old bean farmers and bootleggers started growing opium and marijuana and through their kin, either by blood or by marriage, started smuggling the stuff north. Many of the entrepreneurial hillbillies made contacts with infamous mob bosses in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and all the border cities. Lucky Luciano and Bugsy were some of the famous clients of the Mexicans.

For years throughout the 1940s and 1950's up till the sixties, the boys from Sinaloa grew the pot and sold the pot up north. These poor peasants soon found themselves rolling in dough and left their poor crumbling houses in the mountain towns of Badiraguato and surrounding villages and migrated to the Sinaloa state capital city of Culiacan.

There the noveau riche drug kingpins bought ostentatious mansions, rolled around in armored Lincolns and Fords, shot it out with rivals at weddings and nightclubs, and held lavish parties that lasted days, with the finest Sinaloan brass bands of the time livening up the fiestas.

In the 60's Pedro Aviles Perez, born in Durango but Sinaloan at heart, was the man who controlled the drug trade in Mexico. He was untouchable and said to be a friend of Ol' Blue Eyes Frank Sinatra himself. Pedrito would be the man who would serve as mentor to many and most of Mexicos future notorious mafia bosses. Many of the men responsible for the illegal drug trade in Mexico now were snot nosed kids running errands for Aviles when he was king of "contrabandistas".

Many others ran the trade in the state of Sinaloa, violence was rare but not unheard of in Culiacan, all the men worked together, and if not, they at least respected each other. It was a man's business, families and women were not touched. That was taboo. Lamberto Quintero Paez was one such man, as well as Roberto Alvarado, Ruben Cabada and Lalo Fernandez.

Around 1975, the Mexican government was growing weary of the monster it had created. These Narcos were getting out of hand and something had to be done. They had too much power, and too much money, they ran the state of Sinaloa and much of the north like feudal warlords. Governors and Mayors were friends of the traffickers. The Mexican Government came up with "Operacion Condor".

Hundreds of soldiers and federal agents descended upon the "Golden Triangle" of Sinaloa, Durango and Sinaloa, beating up the farmers, whether they were pot farmers or legitamite, it didn't matter. They sprayed herbicides all over the lands so now not even beans would grow. Many were tortured and killed, thrown out of helicopters or simply "made disappeared" by the brutal soldiers. The brutal campaign lasted three years.

In January 1976, drug kingpin Lamberto Quintero was killed by rivals in El Salado. On September 15, 1978, big boss Pedro Aviles was set up and ambushed by Federales outside a roadblock in Culiacan. The heat was growing for the Sinaloan mafia with the violence and Operation Condor, they could no longer stay in Culiacan. They had to set up a new base of operations:

Guadalajara.