Freed Mexico Drug Lord Caro Quintero Got a Huge Head Start Tracy Wilkinson - The Los Angeles Times
go to original August 30, 2013

Rafael Caro Quintero at Puente Grande prison near Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2005. Mexican federal officials insist they didn't know he would be released soon after a court ruling this month. (AFP/Getty Images)

MEXICO CITY — When Rafael Caro Quintero, one of Mexico's most notorious drug kingpins, stepped from prison before dawn on a Friday this month, authorities made no effort to put a tail on him.

Today he could be almost anywhere, and finding him may be impossible.

Letting such a big fish slip away from them after 28 years behind bars has proved enormously embarrassing to the young government of President Enrique Peña Nieto and has badly damaged U.S. regard for Mexico.

Officials in the federal attorney general's office, the Interior Ministry, which oversees all security matters, and the presidency all insist they didn't know that Caro Quintero was being released on Aug. 9 from the Puente Grande prison near Guadalajara.

A three-member judicial panel freed Caro Quintero, serving a 40-year sentence, on a technicality: He should have been tried in a state rather than a federal court.

Read the rest at The Los Angeles Times

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