DEA agent Kiki Camarena was murdered in Mexico in 1985. His alleged killer is now in the U.S.

DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena disappeared in 1985, shortly after he helped bust a billion-dollar marijuana operation in Mexico. 

Headed to a luncheon with his wife, Mika, on Feb. 7, 1985, Camarena, then 37 years old, was surrounded by five armed men who threw him into a car and sped away, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. He had been due to transfer back to the U.S. just three weeks later, the DEA said. 

About a month after he disappeared, his body was found on a ranch about 60 miles away, according to the DEA. He had been tortured. 

Nearly four decades later, his alleged killer, drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, is headed to the U.S. along with 28 other prisoners requested by the U.S. government, the Justice Department confirmed Thursday evening. 

“This moment is extremely personal for the men and women of DEA who believe Caro Quintero is responsible for the brutal torture and murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena. It is also a victory for the Camarena family,” DEA Acting Administrator Derek S. Maltz said in a statement. 

“Today sends a message to every cartel leader, every trafficker, every criminal poisoning our communities: You will be held accountable. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far you run, justice will find you.”

A father of three sons serving his country

Camarena, a father of three sons, was living in Guadalajara, Mexico, with his family working as an undercover DEA agent, his son told CBS News in a 2017 interview. He had been stationed there for four years on the trail of the country’s biggest marijuana and cocaine traffickers.

He had been with the DEA for 11 years after serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, and as a fireman police, officer, and an Imperial County deputy sheriff in Calexico, California, where he grew up, according to the DEA. Camarena was born in Mexicali, Mexico, and moved to the U.S. when he was nine years old. 

He married his high-school sweetheart, and together with their young family, they moved to Mexico in 1981.

At the time, Guadalajara cartel leader Quintero was one of the primary suppliers of heroin, cocaine, and marijuana to the U.S. in the late 1970s. He blamed Camarena for a 1984 raid by Mexican authorities on a marijuana plantation, Rancho Bufalo, that upset his business. 

The DEA said at the time it was the largest drug seizure ever.

In retaliation, it is believed Camarena was kidnapped in Guadalajara, allegedly on orders from Caro Quintero. 

Camarena’s son, who shares the same name as his father, Enrique, was 11 years old when his dad disappeared. He remembered a few hours after he went missing, agents flooded their family home. 

“Within about five or six hours, there’s a dozen to two dozen agents that arrived,” Enrique told CBS News in that 2017 interview. But he believed his father would return home. 

“Well your dad’s Superman,” Enrique said. “So, you think, we’ll see him. He’ll be fine.” 

Enrique and his brothers were then rushed out of Mexico to the U.S. He remembers an agent picking him up and carrying him from his living room to a waiting car. He would never see his father again. 

The family received a call from then-President Ronald Reagan after Camerana’s body was identified. Camerana’s wife also met with Reagan at the White House.    

Red Ribbon Week carries his memory forward 

Shortly after his death, members of his hometown of Calexico began wearing red ribbons to commemorate his sacrifice and launched the Camarena Club in his honor, according to the DEA. Hundreds of club members wore red ribbons and pledged to lead drug-free lives.

In 1985, club members presented the “Camarena Club Proclamation” to then-first lady Nancy Reagan, bringing it to national attention. In 1988, Congress formally established Red Ribbon Week, which encourages parents, educators and businesses to promote a drug-free lifestyle. The Enrique S. Camarena Educational Foundation was later launched, which provides scholarships to high school seniors.   

A memorial was created in Camarena’s honor in Los Angeles in 2014. 

His son Enrique, who became a judge in 2014 in San Diego, told CBS News he carries his father’s lessons into the courtroom. “He taught us to treat everyone fairly.”

Carter Evans and

Andres Triay

contributed to this report.