{
  "uid": "dea-caro-quintero",
  "slug": "rafael-caro-quintero",
  "name": "RAFAEL CARO QUINTERO",
  "agency": "DEA",
  "list": "DEA / FBI Most Wanted · State Narcotics Reward",
  "category": "Narcotics",
  "charge": "Founding member of the Guadalajara Cartel; charged in the 1985 kidnapping and murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique 'Kiki' Camarena, and decades of drug trafficking into the United States.",
  "reward": 20000000,
  "reward_text": "The U.S. had offered up to $20 million for information leading to his arrest, among the largest rewards ever posted for a fugitive.",
  "location": "Mexico (extradited to U.S. custody, Feb 2025)",
  "state": "",
  "state_name": "",
  "status": "Captured",
  "warning": "",
  "image_url": "",
  "source_url": "https://www.dea.gov/fugitives",
  "updated": "2026-06-08",
  "kind": "wanted",
  "caution": "",
  "remarks": "",
  "hook": "For nearly forty years his name sat at the top of the DEA's list. The reward to find him reached $20 million.",
  "blurb": "In February 1985, DEA Special Agent Enrique 'Kiki' Camarena was taken off a Guadalajara street, tortured, and killed. The case reshaped how the United States fought the drug trade, and it made one name infamous: Rafael Caro Quintero, a founder of the Guadalajara Cartel. He was convicted in Mexico, then walked free in 2013 on a procedural ruling, and vanished back into the Sierra. For nearly a decade he was a ghost with a $20 million reward on his head, one of the largest the U.S. had ever posted.",
  "mystery": "Mexican forces recaptured him in 2022; in early 2025 he was sent north to face the charges in an American courtroom. The manhunt is over, the reckoning is only beginning.",
  "rib": "",
  "ribcls": "",
  "source_class": "agency_scrapers",
  "corroborated_agencies": [],
  "sections": {
    "photo": {
      "status": "empty",
      "message": "No photo has been released for this case."
    },
    "charges": {
      "status": "available",
      "message": ""
    },
    "location": {
      "status": "available",
      "message": ""
    },
    "reward": {
      "status": "not_applicable",
      "message": "This case has been resolved; no reward is currently being offered."
    },
    "source": {
      "status": "available",
      "message": ""
    },
    "corroboration": {
      "status": "empty",
      "message": "No other authoritative agency currently lists a matching name for this case."
    }
  }
}