The Rancho Búfalo was a 540 hectare marijuana plantation located in Chihuahua, owned and operated by Rafael Caro Quintero on behalf of the neta Guadalajara Cartel. The plantation was the prime income source of the cartel till the cartel began trafficking cocaine. Due to this, the cartel was heavily protected by the Dirección Federal de Seguridad.
American DEA agent Enrique Camarena Salazar covertly worked in the farm in the early 1980s and spent the next few years trying to prove its existence to the American and Mexican authorities. In 1984, he obtains aerial photographs with the help of a Mexican pilot, Alfredo Zavala Avelar. With Camarena's intelligence, the Mexican military with assistance from the DEA raid the weed farm in November 1984. Caro Quintero, along with Joaquín Guzmán Loera and Cuco attempt to fight the military but are forced to retreat. The farm is then set ablaze by the military, causing harmful effects in the nearby civilian population. Dubbed as the "bust of the century", the loss of the weed farm caused a damage of Caro Quintero in February 1985. The victims die during interrogation, and their deaths are quickly blamed on Caro Quintero, causing the drug lord to flee Mexico.
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