Kiki's wife, Geneva 'Mika' Camarena, mourned the loss of her husband. His badly beaten body was recovered nearly one month after he was kidnapped. When Kiki was abducted in Mexico, he was tortured and brutally murdered by drug traffickers. He said, 'Even if I'm only one person, I can make a difference.' And that is what he did-in life and through his death. His mother even tried to talk him out of it. His family knew that being a Special Agent could be very dangerous. He was very concerned about the drug problem in this country, and wanted to make a difference by helping the people that he cared about. Kiki became a Special Agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 1974.

Kiki joined the Calexico Police Department in 1970, and then later was assigned to El Centro, California, where he worked as a Narcotics Investigator for Imperial County. After he graduated from high school, he joined the Marine Corps.Īfter serving in the Marines, he worked as a fireman for the City of Calexico and attended Imperial Valley College, where he earned an associates degree. In 1956, Kiki moved with his family to Calexico, California. He was born on July 26, 1947, in the small town of Mexicali in Baja California. This is the story of DEA Special Agent Enrique 'Kiki' Camarena. About DEA Special Agent Enrique 'Kiki' Camarena One of the men threw a jacket over Kiki's head, and the driver sped away. Kiki was due to be reassigned in three weeks because he had come dangerously close to exposing the top leaders of a multi-billion drug pipeline.Īs Kiki walked to his truck, he was approached by five men who shoved him into a beige Volkswagen. Known to his friends as 'Kiki,' Special Agent Camarena had been in Mexico for more than four years on the trail of Mexican marijuana and cocaine drug traffickers. On Thursday, February 7, 1985, at 2:00 pm, Special Agent Enrique Camarena left the American Consulate in Guadalajara to meet his wife, Mika, for lunch. How did Red Ribbon Week come about? It all started with one man.

Who killed dea agent camarena