Table of Contents
Camarena and the second or maternal family name is Salazar. In this spanish name, the inaugural or paternal surname isand the second or parental family list is Enrique “ Kiki “ Camarena Salazar ( July 26, 1947 – February 9, 1985 ) was an american intelligence officeholder for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration ( DEA ). In February 1985 Camarena was kidnapped by drug traffickers hired by mexican politicians in Guadalajara, Mexico. He was interrogated under torture and murdered. Three leaders of the Guadalajara drug trust were finally convicted in Mexico for Camarena ‘s murder. The U.S. probe into Camarena ‘s mangle led to ten more trials in Los Angeles for other mexican nationals involved in the crime. The subject continues to trouble U.S.–Mexican relations, most recently when one of the three convicted traffickers, Rafael Caro Quintero, was released from a mexican prison in 2013 .
early life and career [edit ]
Enrique Camarena was born on July 26, 1947, in the molding city of Mexicali, Mexico. The family—three brothers and three sisters—immigrated to Calexico, California, when Camarena was a child. [ 3 ] Camarena ‘s parents divorced when he was young and the family endured considerable poverty after their move. [ 3 ] His oldest brother Eduardo joined the Marines and was killed while serving in Vietnam in 1965. His early buddy Ernesto had a troubled patrol record, including drug problems. Despite the syndicate ‘s difficulties, Camarena graduated from Calexico High School in 1966. [ 5 ]
Reading: Kiki Camarena – Wikipedia
After graduating from high school, Camarena joined the Marines. Following his acquit in 1970, he returned to Calexico and joined the patrol department. From regular police study, he moved on to undercover narcotics work as a particular agent on the Imperial County Narcotic Task Force ( ICNTF ). After the Drug Enforcement Administration ( DEA ) was established in 1973, it quickly instituted a hire plan for spanish public speaking agents. Both Camarena and his baby Myrna joined the new agency in 1973, Myrna as a secretary and Enrique as a special agent in the DEA ‘s Calexico resident office. [ 6 ] In 1977, Camarena transferred to the agency ‘s Fresno field office, where he worked undercover on smuggling activities in the San Joaquin Valley. Author Elaine Shannon describes Camarena as “ a natural in the dramaturgy of the street ”, able to “ slip effortlessly into a Puerto Rican stress or toss off mexican gutter slang—whatever the function demanded. ” Colleagues described him as drive, even by the standards of job-focused DEA agents. In 1980, a colleague and close acquaintance who had moved from Fresno to the DEA resident position in Guadalajara suggested that Camarena besides apply for an assignment at the office, where a stead was open. foreign assignments were significant for subcontract progress in the DEA and the Guadalajara position was seeing a rush in work, foreshadowing the explosion in drug traffic of the 1980s. By this prison term, Camarena was married and had three sons. Guadalajara ‘s spring-like weather and the city ‘s american english school and favorable central rate convinced Camarena and his syndicate that the move would be thoroughly for the family equally well .
mexican backdrop [edit ]
american anti-narcotic efforts in Mexico long predate the Camarena case. mexican heroin and marijuana production became a concern to U.S. drug enforcement by the 1960s, but the first gear major american joint actions with the mexican politics did not begin until the 1970s .
early anti-narcotic efforts in Mexico [edit ]
When the french heroin connection was shut down in the early 1970s, Mexico took its place as an significant source of american heroin. mexican cannabis product boomed in the early 1970s adenine well, and was late a major component of the Guadalajara trust ‘s production and traffic. At this item Mexico was not so far a major transshipment sharpen for cocaine, which is produced chiefly in the andean countries of Peru and Bolivia. In reply to impregnable american english coerce, and to domestic police enforcement concerns, Mexico began eradication programs of opium and marijuana plantations, with big infusions of U.S. aid. The first gear programs were on a smaller scale and used largely manual eradication, such as “ Operation Cooperation ” in 1970. As grove sizes grew, the eradication efforts besides grew. In 1975, Mexican president Luis Echeverría approved “ Operation Trizo ”, which used aeriform surveillance and spray of herbicides and defoliants from a flit of dozens of planes and helicopters. The spraying programs required extensive american english engagement, both for support and operations. DEA pilots performed important functional roles ; in addition to training mexican pilots, they helped topographic point fields for spraying and verified that spraying runs had destroyed targeted fields. As separate of the course of study, DEA was allowed to freely fly mexican airspace. These flights produced positive results, reducing acreage planted and finally a reduction in Mexican heroin quality and quantity. mexican law enforcement on the grind besides had some positive results. Alberto Sicilia Falcon, a major seller who was one of the first base to transship cocaine through Mexico, was arrested in 1975. Pedro Aviles, an authoritative Sinaloa seller was killed in a shoot-out with Mexican Federal Police in 1978 .
DEA personnel overseas [edit ]
As function of these efforts, the first american narcotics law enforcement office was opened in Mexico City in the mid-1960s by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, a branch of the Treasury Department. A Guadalajara agency was opened in 1969. These and other offices opened by assorted agencies remained in place as american drug enforcement agencies first proliferated, then finally merged into the DEA. While the offices were opened with mexican government license, they former became controversial, peculiarly during the Camarena encase. [ 17 ] DEA agents stationed in Mexico and other countries then and now are subject to a number of restrictions by the host country. They have no law enforcement powers, rather performing news, affair, and advisory functions, collecting and passing along information on drug traffic, and advising on local anti-narcotics programs. In Mexico, although there had been an informal agreement with the Mexican federal government that agents could carry personal weapons, it was illegal for foreigners to do sol and local officials were dislodge to arrest them for this. DEA agents accredited to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City had fully diplomatic status, but agents in the resident offices did not and could be arrested and imprisoned without any official protections. American law besides restricts DEA activities abroad. As a hardheaded resultant role of host country restrictions, DEA policy prohibits agents from doing clandestine work overseas. A law is known as the Mansfield amendment, introduced by Senator Mike Mansfield and passed by Congress in 1975, prohibited DEA personnel to flush be stage at the picture of an check outside the U.S. It besides banned agents from using impel, except where lives were threatened. This late complicated DEA efforts in the investigation of Camarena ‘s death .
Camarena in Guadalajara [edit ]
By the time Camarena took up his post in Guadalajara in the summer of 1980, drug traffic in Mexico was on the wax. There were respective reasons for this. Under Mexican President José López Portillo, the aeriform detection and eradication endorsed by President Echeverría were curtailed, and american engagement in these activities ended in 1978. This made it easier for producers to build the large plantations discovered later in the 1980s and harder to verify that areas identified had actually been sprayed. In addition, during the late 1970s and early 1980s, cocaine traffic, driven largely by colombian smugglers, grew quickly in the United States and became a elementary prey of DEA, leaving mexican enforcement a secondary concern. last, during Camarena ‘s four-and-a-half years in Guadalajara, major traffickers arose to take the place of the figures arrested and killed in the 1970s. The best know of these were Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo and Rafael Caro Quintero. These three much coordinated their production and operations, and formed the core of what came to be called the Guadalajara Cartel. All three were finally found guilty of having participated in Camarena ‘s kidnap and mangle .
resident agent [edit ]
many of Camarena ‘s investigations involved the major cannabis plantations that sprang up beginning in the early 1980s. Earlier plantations were normally located in distant batch areas where they were hard to spot and irrigation did not require boring wells. Yields were relatively broken, quality varied, and exile was expensive. The new plantations were seeded with an better diverseness of marijuana, developed by american cultivators, called “ sinsemilla “ ( seedless ). This more mighty, higher-quality variety brought much higher prices in north american markets. The plantations were located in distant defect areas, where department of transportation was a lot less expensive. The new plantations faced respective problems. Desert production required well drilling for irrigation, and Mexico had nonindulgent laws governing well digging, a trouble that was finally solved by massive bribery. It was besides easier to spot plantations in the barren deserts ; the larger the farm, the easier to spot. With an end to solo american overflights as region of the eradication platform, however, money and intimidation allowed farms to grow dramatically without coming to official notice. Prohibited from solo overflights and clandestine knead, DEA agents in Mexico concentrated on cultivating informants, an frequently unmanageable tax, particularly as informing became more and more dangerous. Camarena, however, excelled at working with informants ; Shannon writes that “ cipher else in the Guadalajara office could match Kiki ‘s charisma with informants. He had a way of convincing a homo to screw up his courage and venture where he never dreamed he would go. ”
Camarena ‘s work with an informant they called “ Miguel Sanchez ” led to the inaugural discovery of one of the newfangled style plantations in 1982. “ Sanchez ” became friends with the man running the grove, who told “ Miguel ” it was outside a small, isolated town called Vanegas in the state of San Luis Potosi, just across the frame from the express of Zacatecas. According to “ Miguel ” ‘s data, the independent financier of the grove was trust penis Juan José Esparragoza Moreno. Camarena and “ Miguel ” finally located the plantation in August 1982. Camarena arranged two clandestine solo overflights to confirm that it was a major grove. He then briefed Mexican authorities, who raided the plantation in September. amazingly, the plantation was over 200 acres, employing hundreds of growers. The Guadalajara DEA estimated over four thousand tons of sinsemilla marijuana were destroyed in the raid, making it the largest plantation discovered astir to that time .
abduction and murder [edit ]
In 1984, acting on information from the DEA, 450 mexican soldiers backed by helicopters destroyed a 1,000-hectare ( 2,500-acre ) cannabis grove in Allende ( Chihuahua ), [ 30 ] [ 31 ] known as “ Rancho Búfalo ”, with an estimate annual production of $ 8 billion. [ 32 ] [ 33 ] Camarena, who was suspected of being the source of the information, was abducted in broad day on February 7, 1985, by corrupt Mexican officials working for the major drug traffickers in Mexico. Camarena was taken to a residence located at 881 Lope de Vega in the colonia of Jardines del Bosque, in the western section of the city of Guadalajara, owned by Rafael Caro Quintero, [ 34 ] where he was tortured over a 30-hour period and then murdered. His skull was punctured by a piece of rebar, and his rib were broken. [ 35 ] Camarena ‘s soundbox was found wrapped in plastic in a rural area outside the minor township of La Angostura, in the state of Michoacán, on March 5, 1985. [ 36 ]
investigation [edit ]
Camarena ‘s agony and mangle prompted a swift chemical reaction from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration ( DEA ) and launched Operation Leyenda ( caption ), the largest DEA homicide probe ever undertake. [ 33 ] [ 37 ] A particular unit of measurement was dispatched to coordinate the probe in Mexico, where politics officials were implicated—including Manuel Ibarra Herrera, past director of Mexican Federal Judicial Police, and Miguel Aldana Ibarra, the former conductor of Interpol in Mexico. [ 38 ] Investigators soon identified Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo and his two close associates, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo and Rafael Caro Quintero, as the chief suspects in the kidnapping and that under atmospheric pressure from the U.S. government, Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid cursorily apprehended Carillo and Quintero, but Félix Gallardo still enjoyed political protection. The United States government pursued a drawn-out probe of Camarena ‘s murder. due to the difficulty of extraditing mexican citizens, the DEA went deoxyadenosine monophosphate far as to detain two suspects, Humberto Álvarez Machaín, the doctor who allegedly prolonged Camarena ‘s life so the torture could continue, and Javier Vásquez Velasco ; both were taken by bounty hunters to the United States. Despite vigorous protests from the mexican government, Álvarez was brought to trial in Los Angeles, in 1992. After the government presented its case, the pronounce ruled that there was insufficient evidence to support a guilty verdict and ordered Álvarez ‘s handout. Álvarez subsequently initiated a civil lawsuit against the U.S. government, charging that his collar had breached the U.S.–Mexico extradition treaty. The event finally reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that Álvarez was not entitled to relief. [ 39 ] The four early defendants, Vásquez Velasco, Juan Ramón Matta-Ballesteros, Juan José Bernabé Ramírez, and Rubén Zuno Arce ( a brother-in-law of former President Luis Echeverría ), were tried and found guilty of Camarena ‘s kidnap. [ 40 ] Zuno had known ties to corrupt mexican officials, [ 41 ] and mexican officials were implicated in covering up the mangle. [ 42 ] Mexican police had destroyed testify on Camarena ‘s body. [ 43 ]
bequest [edit ]
In November 1988, Time magazine featured Camarena on the cover. [ 44 ] Camarena received numerous awards while with the DEA, and he posthumously received the Administrator ‘s Award of Honor, the highest award given by the arrangement. [ 2 ] In Fresno, the California Narcotic Officers ‘ Association ( CNOA ) hosts a annual memorial golf tournament named after him and presents an annual eruditeness to graduating high school seniors. [ 2 ] A school, a library and a street in his home town of Calexico, California, are named after him. [ 2 ] Enrique Camarena Junior High School of the Calexico Unified School District opened in 2006. [ 45 ] Additionally Enrique Camarena Elementary School in Mission, Texas, of the La Joya Independent School District, is named after him and had its dedication ceremony in 2006. [ 46 ] The nationally annual Red Ribbon Week, which teaches school children and youths to avoid drug habit, was established in his memory. [ 2 ] In 2004, the Enrique S. Camarena Foundation was established in Camarena ‘s memory. [ 47 ] Camarena ‘s wife Mika and son Enrique Jr. serve on the all-volunteer board of directors in concert with early DEA agents, law enforcement personnel, family and friends of Camarena ‘s, and others who share their commitment to alcohol, tobacco and other drug and violence prevention. As part of their ongoing Drug Awareness program, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks awards an annual Enrique Camarena Award at local, state and national levels to a extremity of law enforcement who carries out anti-drugs work. [ 48 ] In 2004, the Calexico Police Department erected a memorial dedicated to Camarena. The memorial is located in the halls of the department, where Camarena served. several books have been written on the subject. Camarena is the subject of the book ¿O Plata o Plomo? The abduction and murder of DEA Agent Enrique Camarena ( 2005 ), by withdraw DEA resident agent in charge James H. Kuykendall. [ 49 ] Roberto Saviano ‘s non-fiction book Zero Zero Zero ( 2015 ) deals in part with Camarena ‘s clandestine function and his eventual destine .
personal life [edit ]
Camarena and his wife Mika had three sons. [ 50 ]
Media depictions [edit ]
Drug Wars: The Camarena Story ( 1990 ) is an american television receiver miniseries about Camarena, starring Steven Bauer as Camarena. Heroes Under Fire: Righteous Vendetta ( 2005 ) [ 51 ] is a History Channel documentary that chronicles the events associated with and features interviews with syndicate members, DEA agents, and others involved in the probe. In the Netflix drama Narcos, Camarena ‘s death and its aftermath are recapped in news footage in the first-season sequence “ The Men of Always ”. The first base season of the by-product series Narcos: Mexico is dedicated wholly to the Camarena report from his arrival to Mexico through his career there and the eventual mangle. He is played by american actor Michael Peña. Miss Bala ( 2011 ) is a mexican film that portrays a novelize version of Camarena ‘s murder. [ 52 ] The Last Narc, [ 53 ] released in 2020 on Amazon Prime Video, is a miniseries which depicts the kidnap of Camarena and the events leading up to it. On December 21, 2020, retired DEA agent James Kuykendall filed a lawsuit over the show ‘s claims that he was involved in Camarena ‘s murder. [ 54 ]
