Diana Espinoza Aguilar, whose romance with Rafael Caro Quintero began inside the walls of the Puente Grande prison in 2010, announced the end of her marriage to the Guadalajara Cartel’s founding kingpin.
In an interview with Ahtziri Cardenas for Univision Noticias, the former beauty queen revealed that she would divorce the “Prince” to take care of her three children, who have been subjected to “humiliations” and multiple accusations due to Caro Quintero’s criminal trajectory.
“I need you to know that I am separating from Rafael. He is going free, I am also going free, I have three children who need me very much, who need me to be with them in all aspects,” said Diana Espinoza, also known as Altagracia Espinoza.
Related: Rafael Caro Quintero faces another lawsuit, and it was filed by his wife
Of Espinoza Aguilar’s three children, only one is also a son of Rafael Caro Quintero. It is a boy who, at the time of this publication, is nine years old and was born while the former head of the Caborca Cartel was still in prison. The little boy, whose identity was not revealed, was registered in the Jalisco prison.
According to the interviewee’s testimonies, the son she had with the crime boss was even the target of a kidnapping attempt, in addition to the fact that he has been discriminated against to the point of not being allowed access to some schools.
“There was one school where I had to say that it was discrimination and that I would sit and wait for the principal to explain to me why they could not receive the child.”
According to Ahtziri Cárdenas, the relationship between Rafael Caro Quintero and her young son is very close, as he visits him frequently at the Altiplano prison in Almoloya de Juárez, State of Mexico, where he was admitted after his capture on July 15, 2022.
Espinoza Aguilar was admitted to the Women’s Prison in Jalisco in 2008, accused of charges of operations with resources of illicit origin, organized crime, and carrying weapons exclusive to the Army. At the time, she was the wife of Ever Villafaña Martínez, a high-ranking Colombian capo with ties to the Beltrán Leyva Cartel.
In 2010, she won a beauty pageant inside the Puente Grande complex televised by Univision. Then, she caught the attention of Rafael Caro Quintero, who had arrived at the prison in 2007. The two met thanks to Eli Castro, a famous television hostess from Guadalajara.
Diana Espinoza was acquitted in 2011 of the charges against her, and Caro Quintero was released from prison thanks to an injunction on August 9, 2013. They married on July 13, 2016, in Sinaloa. Still, she continued to live in Guadalajara, and they would see each other when security conditions were ideal. By then, “The Prince” was already a fugitive being hunted by Mexico and the United States.
The divorce suit between Espinoza Aguilar and Caro Quintero, as reported by the journalist mentioned above, was filed before a family judge in the state of Jalisco in mid-January 2023 and was by mutual agreement.
Caro Quintero denied Diana’s involvement in the murder of “Kiki” Camarena
In her conversation with the journalist, Diana Espinoza also revealed some details about confessions made by her husband regarding the murder of Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, a DEA agent murdered in February 1985.
“He told me that he arrived, he didn’t know what was going on, he told them that he didn’t want to know anything and that he was not an accomplice or participant in something like that,” were the statements of the former beauty queen.
Camarena Salazar infiltrated the ranks of the Guadalajara Cartel as a farmer in 1981. Thanks to his participation, the Army destroyed a huge marijuana plantation in 1984 that generated around 8 billion dollars for Caro Quintero.
According to the official version, the drug lords sought revenge after the operation, and Rafael Caro Quintero ordered the kidnapping of “Kiki” Camarena. On February 7, he was deprived of his freedom in broad daylight by agents of the now-defunct Federal Security Directorate, which had links with the cartel’s leaders (Caro Quintero, Ernesto Fonseca, and Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo).
The DEA agent was taken to a house owned by the “Prince” in the Jardines del Bosque neighborhood in Guadalajara, where he was tortured for more than a day. When the atrocious aggressions left Camarena in a coma, his executioners ended his life by hitting him on the head.
His body was found in Michoacán on February 5 of that year. Caro Quintero has not been tried for the crime, in which he is presumed to have had a high degree of participation.