Slain DEA agent's family sues Sinaloa cartel, 3 alleged drug kingpins over 1985 murder
The family of slain DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena sued Mexico's Sinaloa cartel and three alleged drug kingpins in federal court in California over his 1985 murder.
The lawsuit – filed Thursday under a new designation by President Trump that classifies several drug cartels as terrorist organizations – seeks to hold Rafael Caro-Quintero, Ernesto Fonseca-Carrillo, Miguel Angel Felix-Gallardo and the Sinaloa cartel responsible for Camarena's death and provide relief to his family.
Drug kingpin Caro-Quintero, alleged by the U.S. to have ordered the kidnapping, torture and murder of Camarena, continued to direct drug trafficking operations while in prison in Mexico after his conviction there in the murder. Court documents said he continued to work with the Sinaloa cartel. Ernesto Fonseca-Carrillo and Miguel Angel Felix-Gallardo are also named as defendants in court documents for their alleged role in planning and directing Camarena's kidnapping, torture and murder.
Caro-Quintero was sent to the United States last month for alleged drug trafficking and acts of extreme violence, along with 28 other prisoners requested by the U.S. government.
"Today sends a message to every cartel leader, every trafficker, every criminal poisoning our communities: You will be held accountable," DEA Acting Administrator Derek S. Maltz said in a statement at the time. "No matter how long it takes, no matter how far you run, justice will find you."
Fonseca-Carrillo is under house arrest in Mexico for his role in the murder, according to court documents and Felix-Gallardo was arrested in 1989 by Mexican authorities. After being convicted of Camarena's kidnapping and murder, he was sentenced to 40 years in a Mexican prison.
Camarena was living in Guadalajara, Mexico, with his family and working as an undercover DEA agent when he was kidnapped on the street in broad daylight 40 years ago. He was headed to a luncheon with his wife Mika, according to court documents. Court documents said Mika went to the local Chinese restaurant in Guadalajara, where she had planned to meet her husband. She waited for him and eventually ate and left, assuming that his work had delayed him.
She took care of her young sons that afternoon not knowing her husband was being brutally tortured. Mika went to bed and awoke the next morning to learn that he had not come home, court documents said.
An autopsy suggested Camarena's death was caused by a puncture through the skull and into the brain, likely from a steel rebar or tire iron. Mexican forensic examiners said Camarena died from "trauma craniocerebral and asphyxiation due to suffocation."
