Friday 9 August 2013

Mexican drug trafficker Rafael Caro Quintero (aged 60) is ordered to be released from prison. He founded the disintegrated Guadalajara Cartel with other drug traffickers in the 1970s and was responsible for the kidnapping and murder of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique Camarena Salazar in 1985. After the murder, the drug trafficker fled to Costa Rica but was later arrested and extradited back to Mexico, where he was sentenced to 40-years in prison for drug trafficking and murder.

By age 29, the Mexican authorities alleged that Rafael Caro Quintero had amassed a fortune of $500 million, with 36 properties and over 300 business in Guadalajara alone. His wealth and notoriety were large enough to spark rumors that said that he had offered to help lessen the country's financial crisis in exchange for impunity.

In November 1984, the Mexican authorities raided a 220 acre ranch known as El Búfalo in the state of Chihuahua, owned by Caro Quintero. The authorities burned more than 10,000 tons of marijuana – totaling a loss of around $160 million. U.S. Agent Enrique Camarena Salazar, who had been working undercover in Mexico, was responsible for leading the authorities to the large marijuana fields. In retribution, Camarena and his pilot Alfredo Zavala Avelar were kidnapped in Guadalajara on 7 February 1985 and were brutally tortured and murdered. After burying the two bodies in a clandestine grave, Caro Quintero fled from Mexico on 9 March 1985 with his associates and his girlfriend Sara Cristina Cosío Gaona. Former Mexican Judicial Police chief Armando Pavón Reyes reportedly allowed Caro Quintero to flee from the airport in Guadalajara to seek refuge in Costa Rica in a private jet after paying a $300,000 bribe. On April 4, 1985, Caro Quintero was arrested in Costa Rica and extradited to Mexico City. He was sentenced to 40 years for drug trafficking and for the murder of Camarena and Zavala.

Caro Quintero's Guadalajara Cartel fell apart in the early 1990s, and its remaining leaders went on to establish their own drug trafficking organizations: in Tijuana, a large family formed the Tijuana Cartel; in Chihuahua, a group controlled by the drug trafficker Amado Carrillo Fuentes formed the Juárez Cartel; and the remaining faction left to Sinaloa and formed the Sinaloa Cartel under the trafficker Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán.

On the early hours of August 9, 2013, a tribunal ordered the immediate release of Caro Quintero after 28 years in prison. The court ruled that the drug lord was tried improperly in a federal courtroom for crimes that should have been treated at a state level.

DEA Statement Regarding the Release of Rafael Caro-Quintero (August 09, 2013)
- http://www.justice.gov/dea/divisions/hq/2013/hq080913.shtml

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Planes is a 2013 American 3D computer-animated film produced by DisneyToon Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is a spin-off of Pixar's Cars franchise and the first film in a planned Planes trilogy. It was released on August 9, 2013 in the Disney Digital 3D and RealD 3D formats.

Official Trailer:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KumjBXHdzY