I know you, you watched Narcos Mexico first season and now you wanna know more about the life of Ernesto Fonseca Cariillo, well let me tell you that you are in the right place.
Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, AKA Don Neto, was born in Badiraguato, Sinaloa, Mexico, on August 1, 1930. Badiraguato is a small town in northern Mexico that gives its name to the municipality of which it forms part and has become famous for having been the birthplace of many leaders of criminal organizations in charge of the distribution of narcotics.
Along with Rafael Caro Quintero and Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, he led the Guadalajara Cartel. Together they furrowed the canals that would place the precious alkaloid commonly called Cocaine, as well as the derivatives of the Cannabis leaf and the poppy flower grown on their land within the territory of the nation’s largest market in the world.
Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, has four children, Yoanna Fonseca, Ofelia Fonseca Nuñez, Ernesto Rafael Fonseca and Esther Fonseca Valencia. In addition, he is a countryman of the elusive Joaquín Guzmán AKA “El Chapo”, and maternal uncle of the legendary brothers Vicente and Amado Carrillo Fuentes, also known with the paddles of “El Viceroy” and “The lord of the skies” respectively.
Don Neto and the Drug Trafficking
One of his merits is that he has enthusiastically promoted regional integration mechanisms outside the diplomacy of nations, away from the flashes of photojournalists, parliamentary interpellations and handshakes of high-ranking officials, who on behalf of their respective countries declare the beginning of a “new era” in relations between the countries that signed the agreement.
These organizations dedicated to the same activity, with headquarters in other countries, make strategic alliances in which some put the talent to produce and place their hallucinogenic offer on Mexican soil; which had become a territory permeable to such activities due to the cooperation obtained from the authorities thanks to the work done by the Guadalajara Cartel regarding the purchase of consciences and the return of “favors” granted to officials.
The boys from Jalisco, were in charge of circumventing border controls, radars, the jealous vigilance of US Customs Services, Grande river, Bravo river, to get those doses of happiness to the U.S. consumer in powder.
¿How was Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo Captured?
A life full of dangers, typical of those who devote their lives to crime did not prevent him from reaching 87 years of life.
He did so with the collaboration of the Mexican justice system, which after arresting him in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, sentenced him to a relaxed 40 years in a maximum security prison in Puente Grande, Jalisco, for carrying weapons intended for the exclusive use of the Mexican Armed Forces, collection of firearms, kidnapping, torture and the murder of Enrique Camarena on February 1985, a DEA agent who had infiltrated his organization to provide data to prove the illegal activities of the suspects.
Camarena, the special agent
Enrique Camarena served as a public servant adopting at the beginning the noble functions of firefighter and investigative police until he was recruited by the DEA, and later assigned to the operations of the specialized corps in Guadalajara, Mexico.
He turned out to be so efficient in his work that his name was known throughout the continent and he managed to keep his identity safe from the media until he got into the devil’s table.
Don Neto is released from prison
Given his advanced age and a whole amount of diseases that, counting from colon cancer to glaucoma, it reaches 18 the number of his health conditions, his defense attorneys introduced one more time before the Mexican justice system a recourse to be assigned house by prison.
The petition was accepted by the court on July 22, 2016, not without fierce opposition from the nation’s attorney general’s office. A similar procedure had been denied in 2013.
Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo Receives Parole
On March 31, 2017, Don Neto was released on probation and was able to leave his home freely without the need to wear an electronic bracelet. His sentence will come to an end in 2025.
He currently lives in a luxurious residence in Atizapán de Zaragoza.
The Cowboy Patience
Ignoring the procedural benefits of Don Neto’s time in prison and advanced age, the U.S. justice system does not give up hope of sitting him in one of its benches for defendants for his proven involvement in the murder of Enrique Camarena.
Thirteen others also participated in the incident and Uncle Sam has only been able to prosecute Raúl López Álvarez, Juan Feliz Gutiérrez and René Martín Verdugo Urquídez. It is a matter of honor.