On July 15, Mexican forces finally captured Rafael Caro Quintero. As he was brought out from the bush in the northern state of Sinaloa, held by authorities after being spotted by a diligent dog from Mexico’s navy, the man known as the “narco of narcos” seemed resigned.

He must have seen it coming. For more than 40 years, Caro Quintero played a pivotal role in some of Mexico’s most notorious criminal organizations. In the late 1970s, he was key in establishing the hegemony of the Guadalajara cartel, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo’s infamous outfit, which ramped up drug production and opened illicit trafficking routes along Mexico.

Then, in 1985, he carried out the brutal torture and murder of Enrique “Kiki” Camarena Salazar, a DEA agent working in Mexico. That atrocity placed Caro Quintero in the crosshairs of the authorities on both sides of the border. Arrested in Costa Rica a few months after the killing, he began serving a 40-year sentence for the murder. But his story wouldn’t end there.

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After being freed in 2013 on a legal technicality, Caro Quintero fled. In hiding, he proclaimed his innocence and insisted he had nothing to do with drug trafficking. Evidence suggested otherwise, and U.S. authorities renewed their quest to bring him to justice, offering a sizable reward.

Now, they may finally get a chance to put Caro Quintero in front of a jury and, perhaps, have him join his old colleague, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, in jail. On Friday, the Justice Department announced it would seek his “immediate extradition” to the United States to be tried for Camarena’s “torture and execution.”

But that won’t be easy.

The arrest comes at a rocky moment in the bilateral relationship between the United States and Mexico. Reports suggest that the Caro Quintero operation was a result of direct pressure from the Biden administration, which came during Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s recent visit to the White House. Soon after the capture, the U.S. government wasted no time in highlighting its role in the operation. “Today’s arrest is the culmination of tireless work by DEA and their Mexican partners to bring Caro-Quintero to justice for his alleged crimes,” wrote Attorney General Merrick Garland. DEA administrator Anne Milgram sent out a similar message.

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But López Obrador quickly contradicted their version of events. “The DEA had no direct involvement. Information was requested so that they could collaborate, but it didn’t happen,” he said. Even U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar, who has has become close with López Obrador, stepped in. “For clarification, no United States personnel participated in the tactical operation that resulted in Caro Quintero’s arrest,” Salazar said in a statement. “The apprehension of Caro Quintero was exclusively conducted by the Mexican government.”

The friction has been building for quite some time. López Obrador boycotted the Summit of the Americas, hosted in Los Angeles, over the Biden administration’s decision to shun Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. This week, perhaps not coincidentally, the White House announced it would launch formal trade settlement consultations with Mexico and Canada over López Obrador’s energy policies. “We have serious concerns about changes in Mexico’s energy policies and their consistency with commitments under the USMCA,” tweeted U.S. trade representative Katherine Tai. López Obrador responded by dismissing the concerns. “There’s no problem at all,” he said during his daily news conference. He then proceeded to play a cumbia song. “Oh, I’m so afraid,” the song says.

In this troubled environment, will Mexico acquiesce to the drug lord’s extradition? In full knowledge of the fate that awaits him in the United States, Caro Quintero will probably fight it tooth-and-nail. The process could be long. A few hours after the arrest, a Mexican court granted him legal protection from immediate extradition. “In the end, once all the legal proceedings conclude, the decision will come down to the Mexican government,” security expert Alejandro Hope told me.

What would happen if the López Obrador administration once again chooses confrontation and drags its feet? “The pressure from Washington would really increase,” Hope told me. “Immensely.”

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