Suspect in 1985 Slaying of DEA Agent Arrested

A suspect in the 1985 killing of federal drug agent Enrique Camarena has been arrested, along with two associates, and charged with conspiring to murder a U.S. Customs agent, prosecutors revealed Tuesday.

Culminating a three-month federal Drug Enforcement Administration sting operation, Raul Lopez Alvarez, 29, was arrested Monday as he left a Rosemead motel where investigators claim he had just finished the final negotiations of the planned kidnaping, torture and murder of the unidentified customs agent.

Arrested with him were Carlos Quintero Maldonado, 25, and Fabian Jimenez Martinez, 22, who allegedly intended to assist him. The three appeared briefly before a federal magistrate Tuesday and are expected to return for arraignment Nov. 2.

A sworn affidavit filed in court by DEA Agent Douglas Kuehl said Lopez was released recently from a Mexican prison where he had been held for a year while under investigation in connection with the February, 1985, murder of DEA Agent Camarena and his pilot near Guadalajara, Mexico.

Prosecutor Jimmy Gurule said Lopez is still considered a suspect in the Camarena killing and is due back in Mexico soon for more court hearings. But Gurule did not know why he had been released and whether he had been formally charged.

The affidavit said Lopez boasted to undercover DEA Agent Abel Reynoso that he was a member of drug rings run by Ernesto Fonseca and Rafael Caro Quintero, who have been charged with Camarena’s killing and are in Mexican prisons.

Lopez also offered his “expert” services as kidnaper, torturer and executioner, saying he could pull off a killing similar to Camarena’s for about $25,000, the affidavit said.

In August, Reynoso was introduced to Lopez by a confidential informant whom Lopez had approached seeking to sell drugs, the affidavit said. At a Sept. 3 meeting at the Quiet Cannon restaurant in Montebello, Lopez told Reynoso that he could sell him large quantities of cocaine once he got a nod from Fonseca, the affidavit said.

During the drug discussion and without prompting from Reynoso, Lopez allegedly bragged that he was a bodyguard for Fonseca and that he became an expert at kidnap-torture killings while he was a police officer in the Mexican state of Jalisco.

Lopez offered to summon two associates from Mexico to perform an abduction, torture and murder similar to Camarena’s, the affidavit said. Lopez said he would take the victim to a secluded house, beat him, gag his mouth and pour soda water up his nose, then use a cattle prod or electrical cord to administer electrical shocks to the genitals, the affidavit said.

Blind Victim

The affidavit said Lopez offered to blind the victim with citric acid by taping lemons to his eyes for five hours and then use his “trademark”--one .45-caliber shot to the head. Then he would be buried in the backyard, a technique Lopez said was used on Camarena, the affidavit said.

The affidavit said that at an Oct. 14 meeting at the Bonaventure in downtown Los Angeles, Lopez set forth his requirements for the killing: a van and a secluded house, three guns, two silencers, a cattle prod, two cases of unflavored soda water, plastic handcuffs, a high-intensity lamp, nine body bags and picks and shovels for burial and a tape recorder for recording the torture.

Reynoso gave Lopez $3,000 the next day and gave him another $1,000 when he returned from Mexico Oct. 23 with Quintero and Jimenez, the affidavit said. The three firmed up plans with Reynoso Oct. 26 at the Vagabond Inn in Rosemead, setting the killing for that night or the next day, the affidavit said.