After Trump Move, Family Sues Cartel Over DEA Agent's Killing

The family of Enrique "Kiki" Camarena has sued Mexico's Sinaloa cartel over the kidnapping and killing of the US DEA agent, taking advantage of the new designation of cartels as terrorist organizations. The lawsuit also names three drug lords, Rafael Caro Quintero, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, and Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, NBC News reports. "It has been 40 years since these men and their deadly criminal enterprise ended my husband's life, which he dedicated to stopping traffickers from flooding our country with dangerous criminals, narcotics, and violence," his widow, Geneva "Mika" Camarena, said in a statement. Her husband was on his way to have lunch with her when he was abducted on Feb. 7, 1985.

Camarena, who had recently helped break up a billion-dollar marijuana operation in Mexico, was surrounded by five armed men in Guadalajara who pushed him into a car and sped away with him, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. His pilot, Alfredo Zavala-Avelar, was kidnapped near the city's airport, and the suit says both of them were tortured in an effort to learn what the DEA knew about the cartel, per CBS News. Camarena, 37, was scheduled to be transferred back to the US three weeks later, the DEA said. The suit says the men were killed two days after being abducted and buried on a farm about 60 miles from Guadalajara.

After President Trump made the designation change in February, Caro Quintero and more than 20 other drug cartel suspects were deported to the US. Caro Quintero has pleaded not guilty in New York to charges including orchestrating Camarena's killing. The three kingpins defendants were previously convicted in Mexico's courts and each sentenced to 40 years in prison. (Mexico released Caro Quintero early, in 2013, and he spent nearly 10 years on the run.) The family's lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in federal court in California, seeks unspecified damages. Camarena's sister Myrna thanked Trump for his "bold action" on the terrorist designation, saying "we finally have a chance to hold his killers accountable in a United States courtroom." The first season of the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico included the case. (More Sinaloa drug cartel stories.)