Mexican drug lord convicted in killing of DEA agent Enrique ‘Kiki' Camarena is freed
Ernesto "Don Neto" Fonseca Carrillo, one of the co-founders of the Guadalajara Cartel, was freed last weekend after completing his 40-year sentence, a federal agent confirmed to the Associated Press.
Fonseca, 94, had been serving the remainder of his sentence under home confinement outside Mexico City since being moved from prison in 2016. The DEA did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday from Fox News Digital.
Rafael Caro Quintero, another Guadalajara Cartel co-founder who also was convicted in the murder, was one of 29 cartel figures Mexico sent to the United States in February. It's unclear if the U.S. is now looking to bring Fonseca into custody.
At the time of his murder, the DEA and Camarena had been utilizing a series of wiretaps to make sizeable drug busts inside Mexico.
In February 1985, as Camarena left to meet his wife for lunch outside the U.S. consulate in Guadalajara, he was surrounded by officers from the DFS, a Mexican intelligence agency that no longer exists.
"Back in the middle 1980s, the DFS, their main role was to protect the drug lords," former DEA agent Hector Berrellez, who led the investigation into Camarena's murder, told Fox News in 2013.
The DFS agents then took Camarena, blindfolded and held at gunpoint, to one of Caro Quintero's haciendas nearby.
For more than 30 hours, Caro-Quintero and others interrogated Camarena and crushed his skull, jaw, nose and cheekbones with a tire iron. They broke his ribs, drilled a hole in his head and tortured him with a cattle prod. As Camarena lay dying, Caro-Quintero ordered a cartel doctor to keep the U.S. agent alive.
The 37-year-old's body was found dumped on a nearby ranch about a month later.
In 2013, Caro Quintero walked free after serving 28 years in prison. He was released after a court overturned his 40-year sentence for the kidnapping and killing of Camarena.
Caro Quintero was arrested again by Mexican forces in July 2022 after he allegedly returned to drug trafficking.
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USA Today
21 minutes ago
- USA Today
ICE raided a popular swap meet. Now vendors and and customers are coming back.
Gerardo Pichardo used to set out his electronics and Amazon overstock products for sale in an indoor space at the Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet. But after an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on June 14 at the Los Angeles area hub for Spanish-speaking Latino vendors, he said he now sets up outside, "with only essential things, so if anything happens I can get out of here fast." Vendors such as Pichardo say fear of ICE has meant a loss of customers and fewer vendors this summer. Some vendors stopped showing up, and the ones who continued selling said their business declined, though it is slowly recalled that a few years ago, he saw a tribute to Maná — a Mexican rock band — perform at the swap meet. He remembered a crowd of people drinking and dancing to the music. Two such concerts have been canceled since the raid. The swap meet is a place where customers find deals for as low as a dollar, attend live performances and enjoy a sense of community. A month after the raid, canopies shielding vendors from the sun speckled the outdoor lot, with goods laid out on tables and the ground. Signs read '$1' or "$2." Vendors called out to the occasional passing customer. Still, a lot of aisles remained empty. Some vendors left early. A man selling kitchen supplies packed up his antiques and silverware two hours ahead of closing time. But the community spirit of the swap meet is still alive with him and many others. He sold a toaster for $2 to a skeptical customer, telling him that if it didn't work, he could bring it back. Cecilia Soriano, who has been selling groceries at the swap meet for a year and a half, said her business has been cut in half since the raid. She hasn't seen some of her regular customers in weeks. The day of the raid, a woman came around to inform vendors about ICE agents in the area. When her customers passed by, Soriano warned them. Pichardo, who has been selling at the swap meet for five years, also remembers the day of the ICE raid. He was sitting in the booth with his dad when he heard someone on the phone mention that ICE was two blocks away. Many vendors left. He packed his products into his truck and drove away. As he exited the lot, he saw two unmarked white vans outside. Not long after, according a statement the Santa Fe Swap Meet's statement posted on Instagram, more than 110 armed federal agents in tactical gear, alongside a military helicopter, raided the swap meet and detained at least two people hours before a concert with five Mexican bands was supposed to take place. 'It was a regular day until somebody said 'ICE,'' Pichardo said. 'Then everyone was panicking. They knew ICE was in the area, but they didn't know they would come in.' A friend who has been selling clothes at the swap meet for nearly 10 years hid in a shipping container for several hours until everybody left to avoid the chaos of the raid, Pichardo said. In its statement on Instagram, the Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet said of the raid that they 'were given no notice of their arrival and at no point' consented to ICE enforcement. 'To be clear, the Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet, and its personnel did not coordinate with ICE or participate in any preplanning of immigration enforcement with federal officials,' they said in the statement. 'These actions were completely out of our control.' Swap meet managers declined to comment on the effects of the raid on vendors and customers. The raid at Santa Fe Springs reverberated elsewhere. At the Vineland Swap Meet in La Puente, California, vendors also said they've seen a decline in business, even though their swap meet has not been raided. Felipe, who asked that his last name not be shared because he fears ICE will target his family, has been selling packaged food, restaurant supplies and knickknacks at the Vineland meet with his parents for over 15 years. He also said that business had declined in the last month since the ICE raids, but it is slowly increasing. In an interview on July 16, he said that day was the busiest it had been since the raids started. Still, not everything has returned to normal. He said that there was a woman across from his booth that initially sold clothes but started selling tools at Vineland; since the raids started, her spot has been empty. She was there longer than his family was. He said it is sad not seeing her and wondering if it is because of fear. His family also has regular customers, and he said there are many he hasn't seen since the raids started, but for the most part many still go to be supportive. It is the way his family sustains their livelihood. 'I think a lot of people are afraid, so they don't, they don't drop by,' Felipe said. 'I think it's recently been picking it back up, but it's still slow.' Wendy Alma Flores, who has been at a booth ath the Vineland meet giving senior citizens information about Medicare for a year and a half, said that she was initially scared for her clients and she was even afraid to go to the meet because she didn't want to put anyone at risk. She said many vendors didn't have a choice and returned because they needed the income. But she said she believes more people are showing up because they are learning about their rights, getting more educated and learning how to protect themselves. As a local, Flores said she has been going to the swap meet since she was a kid and remembers walking through the lines of vendors with her family. Now she has her own booth with regulars who sit with her just to have a conversation. 'It's good to see people come back and just see the community united again,' Flores said. 'People actually care about each other.' At the Santa Fe Springs meet, almost five weeks after the raid, Soriano saw a weekly customer she fondly refers to as 'güera' return for the first time. She said the woman usually buys candy, fruit-juice punch and Gatorade. She has been encouraging more people to come back to the swap meets. 'A lot of these people, they're family to me,' Soriano said. The community is starting to rebuild. In a July 17 interview, Pichardo said it was the busiest the Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet had been in weeks. He said the rebuilding of the community speaks to the resilience of Latinos in Los Angeles. 'That's the Latino community. We do come together in a time of need, and we do support each other when it's necessary,' Pichardo said. 'It's started picking up already.'
CBS News
8 hours ago
- CBS News
Many deportees face major challenges acclimating to new lives after leaving U.S.
Tijuana, Mexico — Just three miles across the U.S.-Mexico border from San Diego, deportees in Tijuana are starting a new life. Among them is Juan Carlos, an immigrant from Mexico who had lived in the U.S. for 19 years. On June 24, his construction crew stopped at a Home Depot in the City of Industry, California — near Los Angeles — to pick up supplies when he was cornered by federal immigration agents. "As soon as I saw them, I tried to run," said Juan Carlos, who lived in the U.S. for 19 years. and whose arrest was captured on cell phone video. He says he spent two weeks in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention before agreeing to sign deportation paperwork. "Los Angeles gave me many things," Juan Carlos told CBS News. "It gave me opportunities. It gave me another kind of life…I felt like I was home. But everything happens for a reason." Video of Juan Carlos' arrest was recorded and posted online by a young woman named Audree. She told CBS News she was shocked by the incident, but hoped posting the video would help his family. "What really got to me was I'm sure they had a gut feeling, maybe not to go out that day, but they needed the money," she said. CBS News has spoken to several undocumented immigrants who were arrested by ICE agents, and then after being deported, ended up in a country that they are now unfamiliar with. In January, the Mexican government announced they had set up shelters along the border with the U.S. preparing for a massive wave of deportees. One of the facilities, Flamingo's, used to be an event space. Pricila Rivas is a binational deportee coordinator for Al Otro Lado, the only nonprofit allowed into the Flamingo's facility. Rivas says the facility has a capacity of 3,000, but has only held about 100 people at a time. "It's like a processing station where folks are able to obtain a copy of their birth certificate and basic identity documents," Rivas explained. Rivas helps the newly-deported integrate into their new life in Mexico — offering guidance on applying for work, finding shelter, and getting in touch with loved ones. But she says not all deportees are being sent to sites where there are resources. "There's flights going to Tapachula, to the southern border of Mexico," Rivas said. "So I mean, what happens to the folks that are being deported to other places." Even as ICE agents get more aggressive with their tactics, the mass deportations President Trump promised haven't fully materialized. According to numbers obtained by CBS News this week, ICE is on track to record more than 300,000 removals in President Trump's first year back in office, which would be the highest tally since the Obama administration. However, that number is still well below the one million annual deportations which the Trump administration has targeted. The Department of Homeland Security has tracked over 13,000 self-deportations since the start of Mr. Trump's second term. One of those who chose to self-deport is Uliser, an immigrant from Cuba. At the age of 15, he fatally shot someone and spent the next 19 years in a U.S. prison before being released in 2024. He was issued a deportation order shortly after, and had been attending immigration check-ins regularly. But as immigration enforcement ramped up in the U.S., he worried he might be detained. And since Cuba is not accepting deportees, there was a risk he'd be sent elsewhere. "It was a high risk of me, of the United States sending me to Salvador or South Sudan," he says, " it was an easy choice… letting them send me to a country where I had, no, I didn't have the choice to go to or just deciding, coming over here to Mexico where I'm gonna have better opportunities in life." Of the estimated 100,000 people who were deported between Jan. 1 and June 24 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 70,583 were convicted criminals, according to an ICE document obtained by CBS News earlier this month. However, the data also shows that most of the documented infractions were traffic or immigration offenses. Less than 1% had murder convictions, the documents showed. Uliser says he feels remorse when stories like to admonish immigrants. "When I was in prison, I did a lot of reflection," Uliser told CBS News. "They use that excuse just to target the folks that are actually working and trying to have a better life." Uliser was able to train for a new career as a sales development representative in the months since his release. And he's hoping to be a support system for others starting over in Mexico. "There's a lot of people that are coming," he added. "They're going to be coming out from prison, even deported here to Mexico. And if I can be of help in any way I can, I'm going to continue to do the same thing in honor of my victim and his family." Others who were deported told CBS News they would like to come back to the U.S., but with tight restrictions, they worry the only way across the border would be illegal and Brennan and Camilo Montoya-Galvez contributed to this report.
San Francisco Chronicle
12 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Mexican national married to a Marine Corps veteran seeks release from immigration custody
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A woman detained at a citizenship appointment in May will not be deported following a judge's ruling this week barring her removal, but her Marine Corps veteran husband said she remains in custody at immigration detention center in Louisiana. For two months, Paola Clouatre, 25, has been held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement complex in Monroe, waiting to learn whether she will be allowed to remain in the country. Once a week she is allowed to see her husband, who makes the eight-hour roundtrip trek from Baton Rouge so the mother can breastfeed their 4-month-old baby and see their 2-year-old son. Clouatre, a Mexican national, entered the U.S. seeking asylum with her mother more than a decade ago. After marrying her husband in 2024 and applying for her green card to legally live and work in the U.S., she learned that ICE had issued an order for her deportation in 2018 after her mother failed to appear at an immigration hearing. In May, during a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services appointment in New Orleans, a staffer asked about the deportation order. Clouatre explained that she was trying to reopen her case, with her husband telling The Associated Press that he and his wife were trying 'to do the right thing.' Soon after, officers arrived and handcuffed Clouatre. Adrian Clouatre has spent nearly eight weeks fighting for his wife's release, remaining optimistic that their family would soon be reunited outside the detention facility located nearly 180 miles (290 kilometers) from their south Louisiana home. On Wednesday, they got word that a judge in California — the original jurisdiction for Paola Clouatre's case — had stayed the order for her removal. Adrian Clouatre welcomed the decision. He said their lawyer is preparing paperwork seeking his wife's release, though it's not guaranteed and could take weeks even in the best of scenarios. 'I just keep telling our son, "'Mom's coming home soon,'' Adrian Clouatre said. Meanwhile, the couple's lawyer is working to get the Baton Rouge mother's green card process back on track, The New Orleans Advocate/The Times-Picayune reported. While the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has already ruled that the couple has a valid marriage, the process has been held up amid the legal battle. The Baton Rouge mother is one of tens of thousands of people in custody as part of President Donald Trump's pledge to remove millions of people who are in the country without legal permission. Clouatre said GOP U.S. Sen. John Kennedy has also requested that the Department of Homeland Security release his wife from custody. Kennedy's office did not return AP's emailed request for comment. Kennedy is not the first Louisiana Republican to get involved in an immigration case in the reliably red state. Earlier this month, An Iranian mother, who was detained by ICE after living in the U.S. for nearly five decades, was released following advocacy from Republican U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
