Infamous Mexican drug lord caged in US prison moans about not having TV
A notorious Mexican drug lord caged over the killing of a DEA agent is moaning about being denied a TV in US prison.
Rafael Caro Quintero, who once ruled the Guadalajara Cartel with an iron fist, has filed documents with a New York court which claim he is being subjected to extreme isolation and denied communication with the outside world.
His lawyers argue he is being treated like a terrorist after being extradited to the US in February. They say the extreme measures are in place without him having been tried in court. It comes after police shame British drugs mules by making them pose for photos with suitcases.
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Attorney Mark DeMarco, who is defending the narco kingpin, is asking a judge to change the conditions of his detention, claiming the current situation is a risk to his client's mental and physical health.
After Mexico extradited him to the US in February, the 72-year-old has been held at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center under Special Administrative Measures (SAMs). These measures are put in place when a prisoner could cause death and serious injury to other people by communicating with the outside world.
His lawyers claim he is locked up for 23 hours in a windowless cell which always has the lights on. When the weekend comes, he's locked up for 24 hours, and has no exercise or physical contact with relatives, they said. The team adds that since he's been locked up, he's only been able to have a couple of phone calls with family in Mexico, which were monitored by prison staff.
They also complained that he hasn't been provided with a television though he is eligible to have one. At the moment, he only has a radio which he can't listen to because he only speaks Spanish.
"The government has imposed these restrictions without demonstrating that Mr. Quintero poses a real risk . The measures are based on myths and legends that have surrounded him for years, not on verifiable facts," the litigants said.
Caro Quintero was extradited to face charges for his alleged role in killing DEA agent Enrique 'Kiki' Camarena in 1985. He was arrested in Mexico in 2022, and has been awaiting trial since he was extradited to the US.
This comes after it emerged how thousands of young children have allegedly been abducted by cartel members after they targeted them in McDonalds as part of a vile new recruitment strategy.
The sick method sees Mexican gangs creeping around takeaway spots and luring kids to unknowingly join the underworld. According to local media, the children are promised a better life or lucrative jobs, before they are kidnapped by the cartels.
It has been reported that the gangsters offer them a free vacation and then force then teens into a life of crime. Heartbroken families continue to hunt for their missing children following the abductions.
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Daily Mirror
2 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Female Fuerteventura tourists left covered in blood as police arrest teen
A teenager has been arrested on a Spanish holiday hotspot accused of horror attacks on two female tourists in their hotel rooms in separate incidents. Detectives released graphic photos showing a bloodstained door and blood-covered floor and bed in one of the rooms as they said the victims had suffered serious wounds. The attacks happened in two different hotels in the resort of Costa Calma, the second largest holiday town in the south of Fuerteventura known for its beautiful child-friendly family beach. The youngster arrested has been described as a minor although his age has not been released. He has been remanded to a youth detention centre by a judge pending an ongoing criminal investigation. Police have not yet offered any information about what they think motivated the attacks, with details emerging a week after a 16-year-old British tourist was accused of trying to rape another UK holidaymaker at her hotel in southern Tenerife. The nationalities of the victims, one of whom was hospitalised with injuries to her head, hands and arms, has not been released. Confirming the arrest as part of Operation Praktiker, a spokesman for the Civil Guard said: 'The Civil Guard in Fuerteventura has arrested a minor as the alleged perpetrator of two crimes of serious wounding in Costa Calma in the municipality of Pajara. 'The victims are two women who were staying at hotels in the area. The investigation began as the result of an assault on a woman on June 23 this year. The victim was attacked inside her hotel room, suffering serious injuries to her head, hands and arms. 'She had to be rushed to Fuerteventura General Hospital to receive emergency medical attention. This incident generated great social alarm, intensified by messages the victim subsequently published on social media. Officers began by analysing images from CCTV in the area. 'They checked information with workers in nearby hotels, people who had been staying in the hotels around the dates under investigation and local residents and employees of nearby business premises, making background checks and verifying possible links with similar incidents. 'The analysis of the images enabled investigators to relate the June assault with another similar incident which occurred on December 16 last year, in which another woman was attacked in her hotel room, also in Costa Calma and very near to the scene of the second assault. 'In both cases a similar modus operandi was used. After comparing the security camera recordings, investigators concluded the same person had entered both rooms and caused the serious injuries the women inside suffered.' The arrest was made on July 18, although the Civil Guard has only just gone public with information about the detention. The Civil Guard spokesman said: 'The arrest occurred after a court-ordered search of the suspect's home. 'Clothes he allegedly wore the night of the assaults were recovered as well as different objects possibly linked to the physical attacks. Mobile phones were also confiscated so they could be analysed. The youngster has been remanded to the Tabares Juvenile Centre in Tenerife." As well as photos of one of the blood-covered hotel rooms, police also released footage showing them taking the suspect into custody. CCTV footage also made public shows a youth identified as the detainee fleeing the scene of one of his alleged crimes via a back balcony. Last week it emerged a British 16-year-old who had flown to Tenerife with his family had been held on suspicion of an attempted sex attack on a 22-year-old holidaymaker from the UK at an unnamed hotel in the resort of Playa de Las Americas. He was arrested at the swimming pool of his hotel in the same resort, next to the one where he allegedly attempted to enter his victim's room and force himself on her. He has been remanded to a juvenile detention centre following an appearance at a youth court and banned from leaving Spain pending an ongoing investigation. The incident happened 'busy daylight hours' on July 31 according to police, with a well-placed source saying it occurred around 3pm. Confirming the arrest a spokesman for Spain's National Police said last Thursday: 'Officers have arrested a minor aged 16 as the alleged author of an attempted sex attack on July 31 at a hotel in the municipality of Arona. 'The quick work of officers led to his rapid location and arrest, preventing the possibility of further attacks. The incident occurred at the door of one of the rooms of the hotel where the victim, aged 22, was approached by an individual who managed to sneak in behind her. 'She resisted, screaming to raise the alarm, and managing to prevent the attacker from closing the door behind him who reacted by fleeing the scene. The attack happened in busy daylight hours in a busy part of the hotel. 'CCTV cameras enabled the officers to reconstruct the events of that day and follow the suspect's movements so they could locate and arrest him at the pool of a nearby hotel. He was a guest there and on holiday with his family. The youngster was handed over to a youth court judge. 'Given the severity of the allegations against him, he was remanded to a youth detention centre where he will remain in custody, without being afforded the possibility of leaving the island.'
The Herald Scotland
2 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
The absurdity and horror of life in a time of genocide in Gaza
It happens with dread regularity: cooking dinner on the barbecue as the radio begins playing reports of starvation in Gaza. My plate sickening me, revolting me. I eat my lunch while the TV shows children with their brains blown out. I open social media on holiday and am confronted with the reality of genocide. Human beings are being pounded with bombs, starved and then shot as they scrabble for food at aid stations. We're witnessing live-streamed genocide. This is hell. I don't want to look away. I must look, because to not look is to not know, and we must know. Read More: I am not, I hope, a stupid man, or someone incapable of processing their emotions, but I don't know how to fit what I see, read and hear into the plodding reality of my day-to-day life. I'm not sure what it says about my humanity that I can look at pictures of a land levelled to ash, then get in my car and go shopping. There's an absurd horror to how we all - everyone and every government across the west - is responding to what's happening in Gaza and being done to the Palestinian people. That sense of absurdity clashing up against horror reaches from the level of the lone individual - how a plate of food can accuse me like an indictment - to the level of a society or nation. I watched the British satirist John Oliver on television this week feel compelled to prove to his viewers repeatedly - mounting evidence upon evidence - that Israel is starving the people of Gaza. Why must he be made to do this? Can't we all see what's happening with our own eyes? Do we require proof recounted endlessly? Britain arrests hundreds of ordinary men and women as terrorists for daring to hold signs reading: 'I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.' These people are the conscience of our country. Many are elderly, respected in their communities. It isn't an act of terrorism to speak out against genocide. It isn't an act of terrorism to defend an organisation which protests genocide. It isn't an act of terrorism to spray-paint planes in protest against genocide. If Palestine Action members break laws of trespass or criminal damage, then charge them with that. Don't make terrorists out of protestors. Don't tell ordinary citizens they're terrorist sympathisers. Palestine Action at Trump Turnberry (Image: Milo Chandler) As protestors were dragged away by police, Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to increase the attack on Gaza. Dear God, what does that even mean? How can you increase what's already beyond bearing? More than 50,000 children have been killed in Gaza. Yet only now is the British government preparing to 'urgently accelerate' efforts to bring around 100 badly injured children here for medical treatment. Isn't this madness? Isn't it all madness? Amid this absurdity in the face of unspeakable horror, Israel stands accused of crimes including genocide. The World Health Organisation says starvation in Gaza is 'man-made'. Amnesty International and Médecins Sans Frontières concluded that Israel is conducting genocide. Israeli groups B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights say the country's conduct constitutes genocide. Israel is being investigated for genocide at the International Court of Justice. Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, says 'humanity is failing in Gaza … It should really shock our collective conscience … It will haunt us'. Lord Sumption, a former UK Supreme Court Justice, said: 'Genocide is a question of intent. It means killing, maiming or imposing intolerable conditions on a national or ethnic group with intent to destroy them in whole or in part. 'Statements by Netanyahu and his ministers suggest that the object of current operations is to force the Arab population of Gaza to leave by killing and starving them if they stay. These things make genocide the most plausible explanation for what is now happening.' The UN committee investigating 'Israeli practices affecting the human rights' of Palestinians said 'Israel's warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide'. In the wake of the Hamas October 7 atrocities which began this monstrous period of history, Netanyahu said: 'You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.' The quotation refers to God commanding the destruction of the Amalekites. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said: 'We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.' Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel had 'returned Khan Yunis to the Stone Age'. Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari boasted Gaza would be turned into a 'city of tents'. Politicians have variously called for 'erasing all of Gaza from the face of the earth' and 'crushing and flattening Gaza'. The former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that Israel is 'committing war crimes'. He added: 'What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians. It's the result of government policy - knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated.' Israel's government denies the accusations against it, as do many of its supporters around the world and here at home. One could go on: recounting the blood, the deaths, the accusations, the rebuttals. The absurd horror. All I can see is mountains of dead. All I can see is once sensible people and governments standing in the shadow of crimes which history will never forget, too dumbfounded or scared or self-interested to act or speak up. Why can't we just say what we see? We saw that Hamas committed monstrous acts and we rightly raised our voices in revulsion because our shared humanity demanded that response. Since then monstrous acts have been committed by Israel and our shared humanity demands we respond with outrage. Our shared humanity doesn't demand that we arrest those who speak in defence of the weakest. It demands that the hostages be freed, and it demands that the Palestinian people be freed with them. Neil Mackay is the Herald's Writer-at-Large. He's a multi-award winning investigative journalist, author of both fiction and non-fiction, and a filmmaker and broadcaster. He specialises in intelligence, security, crime, social affairs, cultural commentary, and foreign and domestic politics
New Statesman
3 hours ago
- New Statesman
The lost art of political oratory
LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 17: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks at a civil society summit on July 17, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Frank Augstein -) I am writing this from a crammed Edinburgh Festival where the appetite for live shows is close to insatiable. Everywhere there are insane queues for the latest performances. Evidently people ache to be away from their phones and social media for a bit and gather to watch a performance or a performer. There are limits to being on X alone. I am one of those who ache. I perform my own show in Edinburgh and elsewhere on the dramas and characters that shape the current wild world of politics. But above all I am a spectator. I watch fascinated as a single person alone on a stage can hold an audience for an hour or more. For the best solo performers there are no props or music. They have words and their voices to mouth them. The audience is bound together by the simple magic. I watch the best stand-ups throughout the year and only recently have I realised why I do so. They fill a big gap. I used to travel fair distances to watch the great political speakers at live events, often for work but not always. Now the orators have disappeared. The political stage is silent as their stand-up equivalents flourish. I would not rush to the end of my road to see many contemporary political speakers. Keir Starmer will never cast a spell over an audience, a problem for him and one reason why he is accused of lacking purpose. His cabinet has qualities but a capacity to hold an audience with a speech is not one of them. There are no Michael Heseltines on the Tory benches to excite activists and those that might be vaguely interested in politics. Currently only Nigel Farage holds big meetings that captivate his audiences but he is not an especially impressive speaker. He stands out because he is better than anyone else at the moment. Jeremy Corbyn might start to pack out halls again with his new party but he is not remotely in the same league as his hero, Tony Benn. The so-called mainstream parties that once erupted with powerful speakers are bereft of such public advocates. Most are cautiously robotic. A few, like Wes Streeting, are brilliant interviewees but do not make memorable speeches. Others try too hard to excite but in their transparent effort become less interesting as speechmakers. Robert Jenrick springs to mind. His speech at last year's Tory conference was dismal on many levels. The decline in oratory is relatively recent. As a student in the early 1980s I was a regular attender, like Corbyn, of Benn's live events, each of them packed. I never heard Benn make a bad speech. I used to take girlfriends to them for a night out, though the relationships did not last long. But Benn was funny, seeking to make the connections between disparate current events and historical ones. Before long he had moved from Jesus Christ to the Chartists, then the suffragettes, before his prediction that if Labour followed his ideas it would win the next election. The rapturous response was part of the theatre of it all. I was not necessarily converted to Bennism but his rallies made me hugely excited about politics. I saw it could be as thrilling as any rock gig or conventional theatre. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe My view was reinforced when, as a student journalist, in 1983 I saw Neil Kinnock speak at a make-or-break by-election in Darlington, a contest Labour had to win for various highly charged reasons. The hall was so crammed, there was a huge overspill gathering. Kinnock's style was very different from Benn's and by then he had defined himself against 'Bennism'. He was speaking as a loyalist whereas Benn had the advantage of being the romantic rebel taking on the leadership. This did not stop Kinnock from holding the voters in thrall, his style that of a funny, passionate revivalist preacher. The crowds left resolved to vote for Kinnock's party in that crucial by-election. This was before he became leader. Kinnock did not win a general election but some of his speeches as leader will be cited forever, while tedious addresses by those moving carefully up the ministerial ladder are forgotten as they are being delivered. There was a similar charge of electricity when Michael Heseltine spoke at Conservative conferences. He still possesses the magic. A couple of months ago I interviewed him at the Cambridge Book Festival. They cheered when he walked in and when he left, captivated throughout. There were others to the right of Heseltine who could light up the stage, most famously Enoch Powell, though I never saw him live. The recordings show how he did it: the mannered intensity, a sense of heightened anticipation as he developed his provocative arguments. The speedy decline in oratory and huge public events began in the 1990s. There was a growing recognition that most voters only saw politicians delivering a soundbite on TV bulletins. That was therefore what mattered, politics compressed to 15 seconds. Tony Blair was a good speaker and an even better interviewee but he was part of the era where live events began to disappear. Only a few voters would attend. The rest would not be swayed by a mesmerising speech, so why bother making one? The current government's favoured form of communication seems to be allowing Sky's Beth Rigby to warn Keir Starmer how useless he is in near weekly exchanges between political editor and prime minister. Another favoured vehicle is the daily broadcasting round where an exhausted minister wakes at 5am and prepares for eight interviews in two hours where they are told by self-obsessed interviewers that 'all our viewers/listeners' want to know why the government has let them down. This is unlikely to inspire voters to engage in politics, let alone be excited by it. The deep disillusionment and boredom with democratic politics point to why the loss of great political performers matters. Not many can attend live events, but the sense of political vitality they generate goes well beyond the confines of the physical gathering. Naive broadcast editors agonise about how to attract younger audiences. Stand-ups do so with ease in Edinburgh and elsewhere. Meanwhile others are drawn into politics by the excitement. Years ago I recall Sadiq Khan hosting a gathering where Kinnock was the guest speaker. The future London Mayor said it was hearing a Kinnock speech that made him want to enter politics. He was by no means alone. Tories have said the same of Heseltine. Who would say that about a current politician? For big political figures the live event has a big advantage. It forces them to frame arguments for a speech. Governments or opposition parties cannot be shapeless if key figures are required to impress audiences by conveying their sense of purpose. This speechless Labour administration would have no choice but to think more attentively about what they are for. The live event should be only a small part of the political repertoire. Many other outlets matter too. But its disappearance altogether outside the party conference season is a terrible loss. It leads to a drab politics without colour. No wonder voters turn away. All the energy in Edinburgh is available for politics. But that requires big politicians to come to life fearlessly and address voters with the art of the great political teachers of the recent past. Technocratic proclamations are dull. Boredom is dangerous. Meanwhile in the absence of any great political speeches I plan to see Stewart Lee several times this autumn. He can cast a spell. Steve Richards presents 'Rock N Roll Politics' at the Edinburgh Festival… a different show each day [See also: Visions of an English civil war] Related
