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

The Escape of the Century: 21 years later

It was 4 am when a prison guard walking down the halls of the Cereso prison in the resort city of Mazatlan, Sinaloa made a shocking discovery. All the inmates from Module 8 were gone. The alarm was sounded, the warden notified. 4 hours later the news astounded Sinaloa state, Mexico and the world.


97 prisoners had escaped through a narrow tunnel that barely made it five feet out of the perimeteral wall.


All was confusion at the Mazatlan CERESO (Social Readaptation Center in English) the morning of November 14th, 1989. Sometime during the night, ninety seven prisoners had escaped in what was already being dubbed "The Break of the Century" by the Mexican media. Almost immediately, Cuautemoc Conde Garcia, the prison warden, his brother a Judicial Police agent and all of the staff working the night shift was arrested. How had 97 inmates, most of them in prison for drug trafficking charges, had vanished so easily?

Upon inspection they found a small hole in the floor, under a cot inside Cell Number 20. Following the hole and narrow tunnel, they found it led to another opening, mere feet from the prisons walls. Then it was every man for himself, the inmates escaped into the surrounding foliage and hills.

Roadblocks were set up throught Mazatlan and Sinaloa state. One of the escaped was cousin of drug kingpin Rafael Caro Quintero, and others were related to Manuel Salcido Uzeta "Crazy Pig", drug boss of Mazatlan. 2 inmates were quickly recaptured. One was found drunk in the street, beligerently waving a bottle another one was arrested near the jail.

While the inmates sought refuge in the Sierra Madre, Warden Conde Garcia and his brother and other guards were being harshly interrogated at the Attorney General's Offices in Mazatlan. A desk was moved aside at Antonio Rosales de la Garzas office and a board set up on two chairs. On it, Conde and the 25 other guards arrested were tortured using "waterboarding methods". They told Conde Garcia they would drill a hole in his teeth and stick electrical wires to shock him unless he confessed to having being bribed to let the prisoners escape.

At Conde and his brothers home, police confiscated millions of Pesos claiming the brothers had been bribed in other to let the tunnel be built and allowing the escape. Conde vehemently denied this and publicly denounced his torture at the PGR headquarters. He had been shocked with cattle prods in his gums and on his testicles. On November 24, Cuahtemoc Conde attempted suicide by throwing himself off a staircase at the PGR offices. He survived with minor injuries and was taken to the Naval Hospital. There Mexican Navy officials protected him and prevented any further torture.

Months later, Antonio Rosales de la Garza and others were arrested for torture and other charges for the injuries inflicted on Conde and the others. They were sent precisely to the CERESO in Mazatlan.

Months after the escape, reporters for Culiacan newspaper Noroeste visited the prison and the tunnel. Some of the inmates that escaped were fat and robust and could have not fit inside the small openings and narrow tunnel. The reporters alleged that it was all a plot against Conde Garcia, the building of a fake tunnel, the liberation of prisoners through other means, all aimed at destroying Conde, who had been director of the CERESO for a few months. All orchestrated, by unknown Sinaloa state officials.

This claim is also supported by Conde, who to this day refuses to name the officials whom he says are still active politically and have the power "to kill him".

Guillermo Carrillo Arena: Mass Murderer of Thousands

Architect Guillermo Carrillo Arena oversaw many new government projects that would revolutionize the capital city of Mexico in the 60's and 70's.

New projects that would create jobs, aid the poor, and provide shelter for poor and middle class families in Mexico City.

He oversaw the constructions of many tall buildings in downtown Mexico DF and the people were happy with the construction boom that provided so much for the 18 million people who called the valley of Mexico home.

In 1970, the dilapidated Hospital Juarez was renovated and a new 12 story "Hospitalization Tower" was erected on the corner of Jesus Maria and San Pablo streets, near El Zocalo. Built with two wings, it provided 500 more hospital beds, a maternity ward, surgery hall, and a helipad on the roof. This new hospital would provide care for the needy and poor families of the capital.

In the late 60's the huge Nonoalco Tlatelolco Housing Project was built. Huge apartment towers lumbered over ancient aztec ruins and the colonial church of Santiago near the Plaza of the Three Cultures. These housing units provided affordable shelter for working class families, with some towers providing luxury apartments and condos for well off families.

Across from General Hospital, he was a key architect in the ambitious Multifamiliar Benito Juarez housing project. More than a dozen new apartment blocks were built, all for the benefit of the middle class.

Carrillo Arena oversaw projects at the National Medical Center, and the building of Hotels and Condos in the crowded downtown area. He was so successful that he was soon named Minister of the Urban Development and Ecology Secretariat (SEDUE in spanish acronym Secretaria de Desarrollo Urbano y Ecologia) under President Miguel de la Madrid in the early 1980s.

Then on September 19th, 1985 the worst natural disaster to strike Mexico City in modern times, hit.

An 8.1 earthquake rocked the capital city for 90 seconds. Killing thousands of people.

The 12 story Hospitalization Tower at Hospital Juarez completely collapsed, killing patients, doctors, nurses and newborns. Around 500 bodies were pulled from the monstrous pile of rubble.

Two wings of the 14 story Nuevo Leon building at the Nonoalco Tlatelolco housing projects also came crashing to the ground killing more than 400 people, including 5 relatives of famous spanish tenor Placido Domingo

The Gynecology/Obstetrics tower at General Hospital, seven stories in all became a tomb for 100 new mothers, doctors and infants. Countless apartment buildings, hotels and office towers completely failed during the huge quake, which was followed by a 7.5 aftershock the next day.

Across the street the scene was equally devastating at the Multifamiliar Benito Juarez. 3 apartment blocks, the A1, B2, and C3, had completely collapsed, killing, injuring and emtombing dozens of people.

At the ruins of Juarez Hospital and General Hospital, rescue workers found that many of the support beams had unreinforced rebar in them. Many beams didnt even have rebar and most of the materials used were found to be of low quality. The walls in many of the buildings simply crumbled as if made of sand.

Shoddy construction methods, negligence and corruption had led to the failure of many of the buildings designed or whose building was supervised by Minister Carrillo Arena.

Many of the buildings had been weakened and damaged in previous temblor and nothing had been done to repair them. Money granted to make repairs simply "dissapeared.

The public was outraged. Visible corruption and abuse of power by Carrillo Arena and other officials caused the populace and survivors of the mega quakes to rally in the streets and demand his head.

Carrillo Arena attempted to satisfy the survivors needs by creating commisions to investigate and build new housing for those left homeless: only one catch. The housing was not going to be free. Those, left with nothing but the clothing on their back would have to fork over thousands of pesos for new housing designed and provided by the wonderful PRI controlled government.

After much public outcry and evidence of shady deals against him, Guillermo Carrillo Arena resigned as Minister of SEDUE in February 1986.

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.

One Last Call

November 9th, 1999

The man milled about the Uruapan, Michoacan airport terminal. He was uneasy. A Strange feeling inside him. Thoughts racing through his head. He had recently had a fight with his wife. He felt really bad. He would soon board a flight to Mexico City but he would soon return.

Before boarding his flight he summed up the courage to call his wife. Forget the problems, forget the fighting. Start anew. He dropped some pesos into the phone and dialed the number. No answer, just the machine.

So he left the message: "Baby, its me. Sorry for everything thats happened.I feel like working things out. I dont know, I feel strange. Dont know why. Just wanna call you and say I love you. Ill be back in Uruapan in a few days. I miss you. Love you.

Minutes later Transportes Aereos Ejecutivos S.A (TAESA) Flight 725 from Tijuana landed in Uruapan. It had a layover in Guadalajara where 83 passengers had descended. In Uruapan only he and a few others boarded the DC-9 bound for Mexico City.

He thought about his wife and how they would soon start anew upon coming back from Mexico City. But the strange feeling didnt leave him. He boarded Flight 725 and buckled up. The jet taxied down the runway and took off.

5 minutes later and 14 kilometers from Uruapan airport, Flight 725's captain declared an emergency. The planes slats on the right wing had stuck.

"Slats...slats...slats, slats!" were the last words on the Flight Data Recorder of TAESA Flight 725.

The DC-9 with 18 passengers and crew aboard rolled over on its roof and plunged, crashing onto an avocado orchard and exploding near La Tzararacua, Michoacan. There were no survivors.

The wife watched the report on the disaster on the late news that night. She had heard her husbands final, heart wrenching message on the answering machine.

Stunned and in shock she sat down. She couldnt help but cry.

Deadly New Years in Guadalajara

Juan woke up in the middle of the night. His stomach hurt. He had drank countless times before but this time he felt strange. "Man, I need to stop drinking" he thought as many of us have thought when a horrible hangover assaults us.He remembered the previous night's New Years party where he and friends had consumed bottle after bottle of tequila. He went back to sleep.

He awoke again almost at dawn. His stomach hurt even more. Now it burned horribly and when he got up he vomited. He couldnt see straight. He awoke his wife "Vieja, something is wrong, please take me to the clinic".

His wife rushed Juan to Guadalajara's Number 6 Clinic in the Polanco neighborhood. Upon reaching the clinic, he collapsed on the tile floor. Juan was dead.

Juan's mysterious stomachaches were not the only ones reported at Clinic Number 6 that New Years morning. 5 more people had been there before Juan, and after Juans death, 10 more people came in, complaning of burning, vomiting and horrible stomach cramps. 4 of them died.

That New Years Day morning in 1968, the city of Guadalajara's hospitals and clinics in the southern neighborhoods had dozens of people reporting the symptoms, which pointed to mass poisoning. The first cases, were of people staggering blindly into police stations or talking incoherently. They were tossed into the drunk tanks, where later they were found to be dead.

More and more people would die on January 1st and 2nd. Dozens were hospitalized the first week of January as city and state authorities scrambled to find the source of the mass poisoning.

Upon investigating they concluded that all the persons affected had one thing in common. They had all consumed cheap homemade tequila. Unbeknown to Guadalajara city authorities, more cases of poisoning were being reported throughout villages and towns in Jalisco, Michoacan and Guanajuato states. The death toll mounted. 40 persons were now dead by the end of the first week of January 1968.

Authorities soon found out most of the victims had purchased bottles of homemade hooch at the small neighborhood store Tendejon La Rosita, in the Polanco neighborhood. The owner was questioned and he told authorities that the vendor of the poison tequila was a man from the country whose name he could not remember.

City authorities quickly raced throughout the city streets using loudspeakers and bullhorns and warning residents to not drink any tequila purchased from La Rosita.

The man was found and arrested and charged with negligence and homicide and illegally brewing tequila, a major crime in Jalisco state, home of the Tequila liquor, which manufacture and distribution is heavily regulated by the Tequila Regulatory Commision.

The man, an illiterate peasant told police he had made the hooch in a still at his home using cans he had found at the city dump, which he assured, he had washed and cleaned thouroughly.

Unknown to the man, one of the discarded barrels he had used to make the moonshine, had been used in a factory to store a highly poisonous and corrosive industrial chemical, which then mixed with the booze. To make matters worse he added deadly methyl alcohol to give his brew a special "kick". The consequences were fatal.

The man, who cried and lamented the horror and death he had caused by wanting to earn a few pesos during the holidays was sentenced to several years in prison.

His fate after that is unknown. But the memories of Guadalajara's painful and deadly New Year celebrations of 1968 are still remembered by those who lived through them.

Inferno and Horror on Ramon Corona Street

Christmastime was in full gear that gray December afternoon. Thousands of Mexico City residents thronged the narrow street stalls surrounding the sprawling La Merced Market, east of the Zocalo. Many shopped for Christmas present, others for candles and fireworks in honor of the Day of the Virgen of Guadalupe, celebrated every December 12th, which would be the next day.

La Merced market is a huge complex of different markets east of the downtown area in the seedy and notorious La Merced neighborhood. Prostitutes and pickpockets abound. The market is divided into several areas: The Meat market, the vegetable market, the flower market, the herb market and the Ampudia Market, which is mostly candy and toys.

None of the unsuspecting people crowding Ramon Corona Street, next to Ampudia Market, imagined the hellish horror that would be unleashed that day.

Illegal Fireworks are often sold in the city and throughout the country. Though forbidden, fireworks form a part of Mexican life and culture. Illegal or Legal, they are easily found hidden under the candy stalls in Ampudia Market. Stashed in a corner, hidden in the countless boxes and crates that crowd Merced market, people fear them but also turn the other way. Improperly handled, they can unleash a holocaust of death and fire. On December 11th, 1988, tragedy rocked Ampudia Market.

Nobody to this day knows how it started, but a fire broke out at a candy stall on Corona Street. A fire that quickly reached a box of illegal fireworks, which then began to burn and detonate. Dozens of people ran terrified at the sound of the exploding fireworks and gunpowder, which started a flash fire that quickly raced down the stalls, incinerating everything in its path: people, paper, candy and more fireworks.

More fireworks exploded as the screams of the victims burning alive were heard all throught La Merced market. Then came the huge blast.

The fire reached a warehouse in a building in Ampudia Market and exploded. Pounds of gunpowder, used in the making of the fireworks, blew up, killing dozens of people. The fire still raged inside the Ampudia building, spreading to apartments on the upper floors. Dozens were trapped behind the iron roll up doors of the market storerooms where they sought refuge from the fire and explosions. These storerooms proved to be deathtraps as many contained even more fireworks, which then exploded.

Red Cross ambulances and firefighters quickly raced to La Merced market and extinguished the fire on Corona Street. The toll was grim. 72 persons had been killed in the blasts and fire, including 12 children and 25 women. 83 more persons were injured or burned and required treatment.

The day after, The Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico City mayor Manuel Camacho Solis toured the fire-ruined area. Dozens of relatives of the dead mobbed him demanding justice. Vendors who lost everything tossed down soggy and burned cardboard and debris at the mayor demanding those responsible for the negligence and corruption of allowing clandestine fireworks to be sold in such a populated area.

He declared the sale of fireworks illegal in the Federal District and the Valley of Mexico (Mexico City greater area). None of the vendors responsible for the tragedy had valid permits. Rarely any ever do.

It wasnt the last fireworks related disaster at La Merced or in Mexico. Fires routinely break out at the market, but none have been as devastating as the one on December 11th 1988.

In 1999, a market exploded in Celaya, Guanajuato, due to the burning of an illegal cache of gunpowder and fireworks. 65 were killed. On New Years Eve 2002 the Veracruz city market burned, killing 32.

In 1998, in Tultepec, an illegal fireworks shop blew up, devastating 5 city blocks, and killing 20.