Ricardo "Ricky" Sandoval is a former US Marine, and undercover DEA Special Agent who infiltrated the Santa Blanca drug cartel over a 7-year period. He eventually became its head of finances. Karen Bowman was his case officer as he started working with the Kataris 26 rebels.
During his time in Bolivia, he fell in love with, and married, a woman named Monica, who had conceived a child during this time.
After a failed attempt in July 2019 by the rebels to assassinate the heads of the cartels, Sandoval's cover was blown and he was forced to evacuate. The cartel sicarios cornered him and Monica as they raced to the American evacuation helicopter, and Sandoval sacrificed himself so Monica could escape. He was cornered and brought before El Sueño. Before he was tortured to death by La Yuri and El Polito, he asked the cartel heads "if they believe in Ghosts".
He was then tortured for 47 hours and executed, causing the American government to move the Santa Blanca cartel to terrorist movement status, and sent in a Ghost Recon team working with Agent Bowman team to destabilize it.
His body is later located by the Ghost Recon squad from an outpost in San Mateo and is retrieved by a CIA retrieval team sent by Bowman.
Later after defeating all of the cartel's top lieutenants, El Sueno will contact the Ghosts to inform them that Sandoval was not the dedicated agent that he appeared to be. Telling them that there is a recording of Sandoval's confession of his corrupt actions while being tortured, the Ghosts retrieve the recording. It reveals that it was not Santa Blanca who blew up the U.S. Embassy, but actually Sandoval himself. He confesses that the action was not sanctioned or authorized by any government organization or third party, but that he did it alone so that the agencies with the right resources to dismantle the Cartel could get involved, hence making Operation Kingslayer possible.
Notes
- He is portrayed by D. J. Cotrona.
- In the game the players can pickup "Kingslayer Files" - audio files from Ricky which reveals how conflicted he was..
- An audio file reveals that after several hours of torture, he revealed that he was the one who bombed the U.S embassy in an attempt to force his superiors to take action against the cartel. He felt that all of his work was for nothing, because the intel he gave on cocaine shipments were ignored and never stopped. So he became desperate to take down Santa Blanca.
- He seems to be based on Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, a DEA agent and Marine Corps veteran who was tortured and killed by the Guadalajara Cartel sicarios in 1984.