Fonseca, known as “Don Neto,” was convicted for the kidnapping, torture, and murder of US DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. The crime took place in February 1985. Fonseca is now 94 years old.
Although the DEA website still lists Fonseca as “Wanted,” a Mexican official told a newspaper that his sentence is over, and he is no longer facing charges. So far, neither the DEA nor the US Justice Department has made any public comment on his release, reports Reforma.
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum was asked about the case during her press conference on Thursday.
“I have no knowledge that the DEA or any US agency might be inquiring about this,” she said. “I asked members of my Security Cabinet this morning and they told me he had completed his sentence.”
Fonseca is from Badiraguato, Sinaloa—the same town as Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who is currently serving a life sentence in the US. Like El Chapo, Fonseca helped shape the modern drug trade. He co-founded the Guadalajara Cartel, which controlled smuggling routes into the US during the 1980s.
Fonseca was indicted in San Diego in 1982 on money-laundering charges but returned to Mexico before being arrested. In April 1985, after DEA agent Camarena led a major raid on a cartel marijuana operation, Fonseca was arrested in Puerto Vallarta for the agent’s murder.
Don Neto fought the charges for years. In 2017, a Mexican appeals court ordered his release, a decision usually granted to inmates who’ve served most of their time. However, Mexico’s Federal Attorney General’s Office overturned that decision, and Fonseca remained under house arrest.
In 2022, he won a legal challenge against a court order that would have forced him to pay $1.2 million in damages to the Camarena family and relatives of pilot Alfredo Zavala, who was also tortured and killed in the same incident.
Just last month, in March 2025, the Camarena family filed a civil suit against Fonseca in a US federal court in San Diego.
Rafael Caro Quintero, another key figure in the Camarena case, was sent to the US in February 2025 along with 28 other cartel members. The DEA believes Caro Quintero gave the order to kidnap Camarena in retaliation for a drug raid known as Rancho Búfalo, writes Mexico News.
Caro Quintero, like Fonseca, had a history of using Mexico’s courts to delay justice. He was released from prison in 2013 when a court threw out his murder conviction on jurisdiction grounds. That ruling was later overturned, and he was re-arrested in July 2022. At one point, the US was offering $5 million for information leading to his capture.
Whether the US will take further steps against Don Neto remains unclear.
