18 Facts About Kiki Camarena

Enrique "Kiki" Camarena Salazar was an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In February 1985, Camarena was kidnapped by police officers hired by the Guadalajara Cartel.

The US investigation into Kiki Camarena's murder led to ten trials in Los Angeles for Mexican nationals involved in the crime.

Enrique Kiki Camarena was born on July 26,1947, in the border city of Mexicali, Mexico.

Kiki Camarena's parents divorced when he was young, and the family endured considerable poverty after their move.

Kiki Camarena moved on to undercover narcotics work as a Special Agent on the Imperial County Narcotic Task Force.

In 1977, Kiki Camarena transferred to the agency's field office in Fresno, where he worked undercover on smuggling activities in the San Joaquin Valley.

In 1980, a colleague and close friend who had moved from Fresno to the DEA resident office in Guadalajara suggested that Kiki Camarena apply for an assignment at the office, where a position was open.

Kiki Camarena had a way of convincing a man to screw up his courage and venture where he never dreamed he would go.

Kiki Camarena arranged two surreptitious solo overflights to confirm that it was a major plantation.

Kiki Camarena, who was suspected of being the source of the information, was abducted in broad daylight on February 7,1985, by corrupt Mexican officials working for the major drug traffickers in Mexico.

Kiki Camarena was taken to a residence at 881 Lope de Vega in the Colonia of Jardines del Bosque, in the western section of the city of Guadalajara, owned by Rafael Caro Quintero, where he was tortured over a 30-hour period and then murdered.

Kiki Camarena's skull was punctured by a piece of rebar, and his ribs were broken.

Buendia had found out about the CIA-contra-drugs-DFS connection, which seriously questioned Mexican sovereignty, while Kiki Camarena learned that the CIA had infiltrated the DEA and sabotaged its work so as to interfere with the clandestine contra-DFS-traffickers network.

The notion of CIA involvement in Kiki Camarena's murder has received wide currency in Latin America.

Kiki Camarena received numerous awards while with the DEA, and he posthumously received the Administrator's Award of Honor, the highest award given by the organization.

In 2004, the Enrique S Camarena Foundation was established in Camarena's memory.

Drug Wars: The Kiki Camarena Story is an American television miniseries about Kiki Camarena.