They’ve turned over what sounds like some truly nasty characters:

Mexico has extradited drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was behind the killing of a U.S. DEA agent in 1985, to the United States with 28 prisoners requested by the U.S. government, a Mexican government official said Thursday.

The official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, confirmed Caro Quintero’s extradition. Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office said in a statement that the 29 prisoners extradited Thursday faced charges related to drug trafficking among other crimes.

Mexico’s government is trying to head off U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat of imposing 25% tariffs on all Mexican imports that could be imposed next week.

Caro Quintero was arrested by Mexican forces in 2022.

Rafael Caro Quintero, a cartel kingpin who unleashed violence, destruction, & death across the US & Mexico, has spent 4-decades on DEA’s most wanted fugitives list, & today we can proudly say he has arrived in the US where justice will be served!
Read more pic.twitter.com/5kajikg6Gf

— DEA HQ (@DEAHQ) February 28, 2025

Trump threw down the gauntlet earlier Thursday in a Truth Social post:

Drugs are still pouring into our Country from Mexico and Canada at very high and unacceptable levels… 

We cannot allow this scourge to continue to harm the USA, and therefore, until it stops, or is seriously limited, the proposed TARIFFS scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled.

Multiple social media users are reporting that this is Caro Quintero landing on US soil:

BOOM – Video just sent said to be Rafael Caro Quintero arriving in New York. pic.twitter.com/TQD99jQyE6

— Ioan Grillo (@ioangrillo) February 28, 2025

According to the Mexico Security Cabinet, these are some of the fine fellows about to face the music:

While all the buzz is about the Epstein file garbage, the real news is with the historic extradition of 29 cartel leaders from Mexico to the US.

I want a complete list of these individuals, including their roles, the cartels they were affiliated with, the charges against them,… pic.twitter.com/h5TD4OCBz4

— Auden B. Cabello (@CabelloAuden) February 28, 2025

Caro Quintero is one bad hombre:

Among the prisoners sent to the US was Rafael Caro Quintero, the drug lord who was convicted of the murder of an undercover US Drug Enforcement Administration agent in 1985.

The extraditions come as Mexico tries to convince the US to postpone 25% tariffs on all Mexican imports. Donald Trump has tied the tariffs to results on fentanyl trafficking and migration, without setting any specific targets.

Caro Quintero, the former leader of the now defunct Guadalajara cartel, spent 28 years in prison for the torture and murder of Enrique “Kiki” Camarena before being released in 2013 when a court overturned his sentence.

Upon his release, he quickly returned to drug trafficking and ended up earning a place on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Now he may be facing a federal judge as soon as Friday, according to reports. 

But he’s not the only bad dude who will soon be facing a reckoning:

Other big names being handed over to the US include two former leaders of the notoriously violent Zetas cartel, Omar and Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales. They were arrested in 2013, but US authorities had accused them of continuing to run the Cartel del Noreste, the successor of Las Zetas, from prison.

These folks have done tremendous damage to our country, especially to our young people. Harsh consequences are certainly in order. 

Meanwhile, do tariffs work? In this case, at least, the answer would certainly seem to be an unqualified “yes.”