Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
Noiser presents Real Narcos, the podcast series that takes you to the front line with special agents and law enforcement pursuing the world's most dangerous narco criminals. In this episode, we'll delve deep into the Kiki Camarena story. We'll follow the Drug Enforcement Administration to Mexico on the hunt for a drug trafficker who sits above all others. These guys are the real deal. And this is Real Narcos.
DEA agents in Guadalajara, Mexico are searching frantically for their missing friend and colleague, Kiki Camarena. Time is of the essence if you're going to find a missing person in the condition that he was in when he disappeared.
You might find someone later, but if you want to rescue them and prevent any harm, time is of the essence. Evidence begins to disappear, witnesses get lost. So it was very important that we move as quickly as possible. We called our counterparts in the Mexican Federal Judicial Police, asked them for assistance. We called the hospitals without any success. We called a couple of friends that he might have been with, and they knew nothing. I then informed the Consul General of the United States that we felt we had an agent missing.
And I called my superiors at the office in Mexico City and advised them of the same thing. And we began to search. The next day, a witness comes forward, a Mexican employee at the U.S. consulate.
The consul general's chauffeur did tell us that he had perhaps seen a law enforcement operation near Kiki's official vehicle, that he thought he saw someone being arrested and put into a car and driven away. That was the only thing we heard in those first few days.
The event witnessed by the chauffeur took place at approximately 2 p.m. while he was on his lunch break. Kiki's truck was parked across the street from the consulate. And as he walked on the street behind where the truck was parked, he saw a small car and some large men push him into the backseat of the car in the manner in which policemen put people in the automobiles, holding his head down so he would hit his head on the top of the car. So he thought he had seen someone being arrested. He thought no more about it.
But, you know, he saw that on the day and the time, more or less, when Kiki would have disappeared. The frantic search for Kiki continues over the coming days. Then, the agents learn that Alfredo Zavala, the pilot who informed Camarena about the marijuana plantation and who flew the reconnaissance mission, is also missing.
Kirkendall is now sure his agent has been kidnapped by Gallardo in retaliation for the pot bust in Zacatecas State. There was no reason for us to think that Kiki had any enemies other than the drug traffickers. And since we didn't have any information as to which particular drug trafficker, we were forced to cast a broader net and look for all of them. The Guadalajara cartel are way, way over the line.
If you abduct a US agent, be prepared for the full weight of the United States government to come crashing down on your head.
Well, we knew that it was the members of the cartel there in Guadalajara because they had already started taking action against the agents. They had machine gunned one of the cars belonging to one of the agents that was assigned there to Guadalajara. So there was a lot of activity that they were generating against the DEA. So we knew who they were.
We had already identified the top level ranking members of the cartel. So that is where we started a global manhunt to bring them to justice. And it was not only in Mexico, but it was around the world. You know, we just basically
started to generate a tremendous amount of effort. And we do that when it's one of our own, you know, they're brothers or sisters, and we're not going to leave any stone unturned until we capture them.
Everybody was highly motivated. And the fact of the matter is that, you know, we went to our counterparts in these foreign countries and they were more than willing to work with us in terms of the global operation. So we got a lot of good, solid support. The U.S.-Mexican border is almost shut down. Motorists at the biggest crossing at San Isidro near San Diego wait for hours and hours to cross.
Almost 50% of all the cars coming through are stopped and searched by border guards. All DEA agents in Mexico are placed on high alert. Informants are grilled for information about the kidnapping, and the homes of known drug traffickers are wiretapped. The massive effort soon pays off.
At the DEA's Guadalajara office, a crucial telephone conversation is intercepted. The day that we realized Kiki was missing, by that night, people were already arriving to help us, both U.S. agents from Mexico City and other offices in Mexico and the Mexican Federal District Police. So then the following day, which had been the 9th, we intercepted a radio communication between members of Felix Arriado's group advising that Felix Arriado was headed to the airport to get in his airplane and leave.
Working with the Mexican Federal Judicial Police, agents race to Guadalajara Airport to intercept the drug lord. But when they arrive, there's no sign of Gallardo's jet. We told the Mexican authorities and they decided to go to the airport, try to intercept the plane, and some of the EA agents went with them. When they arrived at the airport,
They did not find Felix's plane. What they encountered was another airplane, a Falcon jet. It was occupied by a person who identified himself with a fake name. And his airplane departure was being guarded by a squad of armed men, among them ex-Mexican federal police. The agents can see right away the man isn't Gallardo, but he is someone nearly as important. Well, they knew he was a big doper.
because he dressed like one. When you see somebody in an Elvis costume, you're pretty sure it's an Elvis impersonator. You may not know his name, but you know what he is and what he does for a living. And it was very clear from what these agents saw that this was a cartel kingpin. There was only one explanation for the flamboyance. And the jet. Most American citizens and most Mexican citizens do not have private jets and bodyguards and bottles of champagne and guns.
It's none other than Rafael Caro Quintero, marijuana mogul and co-founder of the Guadalajara Cartel.
The agents went to the airport and they observed Caro Quintero standing there with several bodyguards. They were all armed with AK-47s, whereas bodyguards raised their weapons. DEA had their weapons as well. So had one shot been fired, that would have ignited a massacre. It's a standoff. By the aircraft stand Caro Quintero and his henchmen.
They glower across the runway at the DEA agents and Mexican federal officers, hands hovering above holsters. Quintero is the first to blink. Both sides brace themselves for a shootout as the drug lord takes a step toward them. It got very tense. But people in the security detail for the trafficker, who were ex-Mexican federal police, so some of the federal police recognized them, they talked to each other, they'd cooled down.
That, I guess, more than anything else, prevented a gunfight, which would have been bloody at that close range. To their relief, Quintero wants to talk, not fight. He approaches Comandante Pavone, the head of the Mexican police. They have a conversation out of the earshot of the DEA agents. Then, without explanation, Pavone turns on his heel and walks off the runway.
The comandante went to make a phone call. He left the scene right there in front of the aircraft and went to the federal office nearby and made a phone call. We don't know who to. He said he was calling his supervisor in Mexico City. And then he returned, talked to Rafael Caro, and at that point in time he released him and Caro got in his airplane and left. Just like that, one of Mexico's top three most notorious drug barons strolls unhindered back across the tarmac to his men.
Suddenly at ease, their arms flop to their sides. Pistols are returned to holsters. Semi-automatic rifles slung over their shoulders. The bodyguards board the plane. Their heads reappear inside, at the porthole windows of the jet. Quintero can't resist a parting jibe. Caro Quintero sticks his head out from the aircraft and he tells the agents, "Boys, next time you better bring better weapons."
The plane wheels around. Kirkendall and his men step back, powerless to do anything as the aircraft powers up. Less than a minute later, it's barely visible on the horizon. According to Bavone, Carl Quintero is the top secret informant with the DFS, the Mexican equivalent of the CIA. But the DEA don't buy it.
We're pretty certain that he called his supervisor, but we do not really know what took place on the phone call. Our reaction was that the Mexican federal judicial police should have held him and investigated him further. And especially when we learned that that's who he was, we didn't believe that the Mexican police did not know who he was, even though they said he identified himself as someone else.
I am positive that Caro Quintero offered a very significant bribe to the Comandante. The Comandante probably talked it over because he did make a phone call from the airport to probably another senior government official and said, you know, take the bribe and let him go. Then came back and basically said that Caro Quintero was DFS agent and that he was going to let him leave.
Caro Quintero is out of here. As for Gallardo's whereabouts, he's still nowhere to be seen. 27 days later, DEA agent in charge James Kirkendall wakes up ready to continue the desperate search for Agent Camarena when he gets some devastating news. I was in Mexico City to help prepare a paper of complaint against the Mexican government, complaining about the lack of cooperation. And early the next morning,
As I was preparing to go to the embassy, I turned on the television to watch the news and I saw the news story. Someone's leaked the story to the news stations before telling the DEA. Earlier that morning, a local farmer had made a gruesome discovery. At 4 a.m., he was walking along a busy road just outside the small town of La Angostura. By the roadside, the farmer stumbled across two large packages, bodies wrapped in plastic.
the decomposing corpses of Agent Kiki Camarena and the Mexican pilot, Alfredo Zavala Avalar, dead at least 15 days.
So at that point in time, I went to the embassy and I got on an airplane and flew back to Guadalajara. When I got to Guadalajara, the other agents were actually arriving by private plane from their trip to where the bodies were at. I never lost hope that he was still alive until the bodies were found. Some people said, you know, it couldn't possibly be, but I don't know. I always thought there was a chance until the bodies were found. In Guadalajara, the doorbell rings at the Camarena residence.
just what Kiki's wife Mika has been dreading. She takes a deep breath, steeling herself, then opens the front door. - There were signs of torture. There were broken bones and there was a hole in his skull that could not have been made by a bullet. So it had to have been made by a blunt instrument. - After his abduction at gunpoint, Kiki is pushed into the back of a vehicle. He's blindfolded. Finally, the blindfold is ripped off.
Kiki is inside the grounds of an opulent house, in a courtyard by the looks of it. Before him stands a man, an old enemy. Kiki recognizes him as Gallardo's enforcer and cartel ally, Rafael Caro Quintero. Quintero's words ring through the courtyard as he embraces Kiki. "I told you I was gonna have you in my hands, you son of a bitch." Kiki is led inside into a small dark room. No windows. Henchmen surround him. On the table, a large cassette deck.
One of the men picks up a tape, slots it into the machine. He presses record and the torture begins. For 30 hours, Kiki's in hell. All the while, they're demanding names of informants, operations, intel that Kiki wouldn't give up even if he knew it. More than once, he passes out from the pain and the fatigue. A doctor is brought in to inject him with drugs. His eyelids flicker, then snap back open.
During the torture session, he was brutalized from head to toe. His pilot, Alfredo Zavala, was kidnapped and tortured as well, and they were both murdered.
And we're told that the torture session that lasted these two days, high-ranking government officials were present. They would come in and out and come in and out because they knew they had a big problem with their hands. And they wanted to see what was going on, what the outcome might be, that sort of thing. When the Mexican farmer finds the bodies of Camarena and his colleague, the two men have been dead for some time. The DEA are left stunned and reeling. I don't think anybody's getting a lot of sleep. Obviously, the search was over, so...
There was a huge letdown, an emotional letdown among everybody and I guess then you got a little more sleep but by that time you're so upset that you probably couldn't sleep very well anyway. By that time the search is over so now it's just looking for the traffickers and trying to make sense of it all. The hunt for two missing people has become a hunt for their killers.
Felix Gallardo, godfather of the Mexican drug world and his Guadalajara cartel are suspected of the first ever kidnap and murder of a DEA agent on foreign soil. Agent Camarena's body soon arrives back in the USA. I was in Colombia at the time and I found out about the kidnapping of Kiki Camarena through colleagues of mine within the agency.
I thought it was horrible because I knew that the individuals that had taken him were ruthless, treacherous, homicidal killers, and he was not going to be in a very good situation. I was very hurt, you know, because he was a very close friend of mine, but that made me redouble my efforts and my moral strength to do what was necessary to bring his killers under the rule of law.
Agents Vigil and Kuykendall, along with their DEA colleagues, are heartbroken. But one thing is for sure: now they'll stop at nothing to bring Kiki's killers to justice. The hunt for the suspects continues as the DEA carry out raids at suspicious locations across Mexico. We visited ranches owned by Rafael Caro. We went to Ernesto Fonseca's house, found some submachine guns under one of the beds. We did things like that. I mean, they knew we were looking.
As the agents desperately try to avenge the loss of their fallen colleague, news comes through of another kidnapping. This time, it's a teenager named Sara Casio Martinez. The girl's family point the finger at Gallardo's ally, Rafael Caro Quintero. Quintero is known to be obsessed with the teenage Sara. He's been following her non-stop. Now he's decided to take what he wants.
While we were conducting these searches, we received information that Sara Cosillo and her mother had been riding in a car that was stopped on one of the streets in Guadalajara. The window was smashed out of the car.
Her mother was slapped around and she was spirited away. And the family felt sure that it was some of Rafael Caro's henchmen. She was a 17-year-old schoolgirl that had been visiting some of the discotheques and clubs and apparently Rafael Caro had become infatuated with her. Sarah Cazio's family are in a living hell, but her kidnapping does present the DEA with an opportunity. They wiretap the Cazio's family residence.
with the hope of locating Carl Quintero should Sarah call home. A month goes by and no word from Sarah. Then in April, a breakthrough. The family received a phone call and the call came from Costa Rica, from Sara, telling them that she was fine, not to worry about her. The DEA traced the call. It's coming from a large home next to the airport near San Jose. The call fits other intel the DEA have been receiving from Costa Rica.
The DEA office in San Jose, Costa Rica had received information that some wealthy Mexicans were in Costa Rica and had purchased three expensive pieces of property.
large homes with swimming pools, sort of like small estates, and were spending a lot of money. Costa Rica didn't know anything more about them than they had other things to do. When Kiki disappeared, everyone throughout DEA began to query their sources and resources. So they had taken renewed interest in these Mexicans, whoever they were.
DEA agents in Costa Rica, Sandalio Gonzalez and his boss, Donald Clements, are tasked with finding the kidnapped teenager and hopefully taking down Guntero in the next 24 hours before any more harm comes to the girl. I was assigned to the DEA office in the U.S. Embassy. It was only two of us, the boss and myself. And our job there consisted of working and coordinating investigations with the Costa Rica police and assisting our officers in the States.
When we heard about the kidnapping of Kike Camarena, it was a very shocking thing. It's not something that happens all the time. I mean, federal agents are usually not kidnapped and murdered in the way that he was. So we were immediately put on a high level of alert, and we started contacting all of our sources to try and find out if anyone had any information that would lead us to what was going on.
We received information that some Mexicans had come into the country and had rented a house.
we met with the Costa Rican police and started looking into these people. But we had no idea that they were related to the kidnapping. We eventually figured it out and we received information from our office in Mexico City to start looking into these people and we followed their leads and eventually it led to the identification of a female that Rafael Caro Quintero had allegedly kidnapped and taken with him.
Based on that, we worked together with the Costa Rican police and eventually identified a large house near the San Jose International Airport. With the assistance of the Costa Rican police, the DEA agents set up surveillance on the house and plan a raid. They better make sure they get the right guy. All they have to go on is an old, faded photograph of the drug boss, Carl Quintero.
At that time, this man was the highest priority of the DEA or the U.S. government. We were very, very aware of that. So we acted accordingly, dotted all the I's, crossed all the T's, coordinated at the highest levels with the Costa Rican government. The entry plan was formulated by the commander of the team and his bosses, and we were allowed to participate with them.
The night before, we met with the entire entry team as they planned the operation. And then the head of the narcotics police went personally to the judge to get the warrant. You can't execute a warrant during nighttime. That was the law back then. So we waited until daytime. It was quite an experience just sitting around at the house surrounded and just waiting. At dawn, the radio call comes in.
The operation is a go. The agents file out of their parked cars and surround the house. They ready themselves for a fight. When they went in the house, there was no gunfight. There was not much resistance. They found several low-class Mexican drug traffickers there. And in one of the bedrooms, they found a man who identified himself as Santos Coy, I believe, and a girl, a young woman, who identified herself as Sara Coseo.
Agent Gonzalez holds up his weather-beaten photo of Carl Quintero, but none of these suspects match the image. More still, when asked their names, all they give are simple one-word answers. Juan, Jose, Miguel. One of the suspects is carrying a passport. It's fake, but the picture looks familiar. It's not a perfect match.
but it looks like it could be the same person as the DEA photograph. I remember putting the photo right next to his face. There was another DEA agent there at the time and we both looked and said, "I don't think so." I wouldn't have identified him with the photo. The photo was, he was much younger, just didn't look like him. The agent's last hope of identifying Quintero from the lineup is his captive, the teenage girl Sarah Cazio.
I think I spoke Spanish to her, yes. I asked her, "¿Quién es este hombre?" And she replied, she said the full name, she said, "Rafael Caro Quintero." They've got him. Caro Quintero is arrested and flown back to Mexico. I still consider it the top event of my career. It was like the greatest thing that had happened in the agency up to that time. After having our agent kidnapped and killed, to have the principal suspect captured was a great achievement.
With one of the cartel leaders behind bars, the DEA have taken a big step in rounding up the killers of Agent Kiki Camarena. All the DEA need now is for their captive drug lord to talk. One by one, each of Quintero's lackeys are questioned by the Mexican authorities. But they don't give up much. DEA agent in charge James Kirkendall and his colleagues are invited to observe the interrogations. They came in one by one.
Some of them were a little more cooperative than others. All of them, under the circumstances, showed some bravado. They didn't seem to be too concerned. But some of them did provide some information. One of them admitted having taken hundreds of thousands of dollars to Costa Rica to help buy the fincas. One of them provided the name of a major trafficker in the Los Angeles area who had been distributed marijuana. And the last one who was interrogated in my presence was Rafael Caro. But this interview doesn't go as expected.
Mexican Commandante Ventura seemed suspiciously friendly with Quintero. When he was seated, he was allowed to take his blindfold off. Immediately he turned around and looked at the three DEA agents who were there, almost with disdain, I mean almost with a sneer. He more or less led the conversation. Ventura showed a lot of deference to him. He admitted to being a major Marijuana cultivator.
He admitted that he paid off some Mexican comandantes, but he said he didn't have anything to do with Kiki Camarena. Heath became upset with Ventura and the interrogation ended and we left the room. It was pretty obvious that he was being treated with a little bit too much respect, considering who he was and what he was and what he had done. We were upset with the way he was being treated. I mean, it was very obvious that Ventura was not in control of the situation.
Cracking open Quintero isn't going to plan. The DEA put in a complaint with the Mexican Consulate. They're pleasantly surprised when Ventura is taken off the case. Kuykendall himself is even allowed to interrogate the prisoner. Finally, the DEA section leader is face to face with a man responsible for the death of a dear friend and colleague. But Quintero doesn't give up much.
He pretty much said the same things that he had said that I had heard in front of Mentura, that he was a large-scale marijuana cultivator, that he had paid off different comandantes, and that he had nothing to do with Kiki Camarena's disappearance. Caro Quintero refuses to place any blame on Gallardo. Instead, he points the finger at a third suspect, the third head of the Guadalajara cartel, Ernesto Fonseca.
Kuykendall knows the only way they will ever learn the full truth is if they can hunt down and capture both Felix Gallardo and Ernesto Fonseca. But they have a mountain to climb. These men are untouchable. They've bribed virtually everyone who matters in Mexico. The fastest way to find these two cartel leaders would be to tap all the phones of their known associates. But officials refuse to execute the order for the phone tapping.
Without the full support of the Mexican government, all the DEA can do is keep close tabs on the two cartel leaders and hope they make a mistake. Out of nowhere, that's exactly what happens. In the next episode of Real Narcos, the search for Kiki Camarena's killers is ramped up as the full weight of the U.S. government comes to bear on the case. The noose tightens around Felix Gallardo and his cartel cronies as DEA agents stake out houses and raid offices all across Latin America.
Real Narcos is a Noiser podcast and World Media Rights co-production hosted by me, John Cuban. The series is created by Pascal Hughes, produced by Joel Duddle. It's been edited by James Tindall. Music by Oliver Baines from Flyper Game. The sound mixer is Tom Pink. If you have a moment, please leave us a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. ♪