What Happened To Kiki Camarena's Wife?

Despite the War on Drugs launching in the 1970s, it didn't hit full steam until the '80s. Thanks to President Ronald Reagan, that decade was when the American government began to laboriously crack down on the influx of drugs coming into the U.S. Through the work of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), trained agents traveled to the many narcotics hubs, mostly in Central and South America, to enforce anti-drug and trafficking laws. One of those hundreds of agents was DEA Special Agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena. In a tragic turn, he was brutally murdered on the job in Mexico in 1985 by the Guadalajara Cartel. His death stunned the nation and forever changed the war. Camarena was survived by his widow, Geneva (also known as Mika), and their three children.

Kiki and Mika met at Calexico High School in Calexico, California, and became high-school sweethearts. Soon after, they married and had three sons — Enrique Jr., Daniel, and Erik. In 1981, the entire Camarena family left Fresno, California for Guadalajara, Mexico where Camarena was assigned. He would spend four years pursuing the cartel and sharing intel with the DEA — much of which was dramatized on the Netflix show, "Narcos" — but the DEA Agent's life came to an untimely end in 1985 when he was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered. On the day of his abduction, Camarena was supposed to meet up with his wife, but she would never see him again. Where is she today?

Geneva "Mika" Camarena returned to California after her husband's death and relocated to San Diego. She went on to raise her three boys alone. In 1988, she met with President Reagan and First Lady, Nancy, to raise awareness about drug abuse. This led to the creation of Red Ribbon Week, an annual weeklong event that commemorated her husband, and campaigned against drug-related crime. She worked briefly in the medical insurance field and as a clerk in a courthouse before pursuing a career as a skin-care consultant that would last more than 13 years.

During this time, Mika Camarena was also speaking tirelessly at school anti-drug events. In 2004, she founded the Enrique Camarena Foundation, where she is the current president. The non-profit's aim is to fight against youth drug use and abuse. The program has worked with many schools nationwide, sharing Kiki Camarena's story, and the harms of using drugs.

In an interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune, Camarena says that she has been able to fully dedicate herself to the foundation since retiring, and has used the money it receives to offer scholarships to college-bound students. She continues her mission to combat the societal effects of drugs in her late husband's honor. One of her sons, Enrique S. Camarena Jr., also took up the mantle of his father's "legacy of duty" in 2014 by joining the San Diego Superior Court, per NBC San Diego. He was 11 at the time that his father was killed.

The Camarena family's story came further to a resolution when drug lord Rafael Caro-Quintero, the man responsible for Kiki Camarena's murder, was arrested in Mexico in 2022. Oddly enough, Caro-Quintero had already been arrested and sentenced by Mexican courts to 40 years in prison back in 1985 for the Camarena's kidnapping, torture, and death. Come 2013, and 28 years into Caro-Quintero's prison term, Mexican courts overturned his sentence. In 2018, the FBI added the "Narco of Narcos" to their most wanted list with a reward of $20 million leading to his arrest. Four years later in 2022, Mexican authorities apprehended Caro-Quintero, and three years after that in February, 2025, he was extradited to the U.S.

Caro-Quintero was recently arraigned in a Brooklyn, New York federal court for the crimes he committed back in 1985. "We have waited 40 years for this day. This day, when justice would be served," ABC News quotes DEA special agent Frank Tarentino. The Camarena family echoed Tarentino's sentiments in a statement saying, "For 14,631 days, we held on to hope — hope that this moment would come. Hope that we would live to see accountability. And now, that hope has finally turned into reality. While no amount of time can erase the pain or bring back what we lost, today marks a step toward justice." 

In an interview with Fox News, Mika said of Caro-Quinero's extradition to the U.S., "I hope that he never leaves that jail, because he's had so many more years than Kiki ever did."