Brother-in-law of wanted cartel kingpin "El Mencho" sentenced to 30 years in U.S. prison

CBS News

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The brother-in-law of the fugitive Jalisco New Generation boss known as "El Mencho" was sentenced Friday to 30 years in U.S. federal prison following his 2017 arrest at a beach resort in Brazil while vacationing with his family under a fake name.
José González Valencia, 49, was sentenced in a federal court in Washington, D.C. Prosecutors said that for years he orchestrated a prolific drug trafficking operation, using a semi-submersible and other methods to avoid detection, and provided weapons to one of Mexico's most powerful cartels.
González Valencia, known as "Chepa," along with his two brothers, led a group called "Los Cuinis" that financed the drug trafficking operations of Jalisco New Generation, or CJNG.
The violent CJNG was one of eight cartels that were designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the Trump administration in February.
González Valencia's brother-in-law is CJNG leader Nemesio Rubén "El Mencho" Oseguera Cervantes, who for years has been sought by the U.S. government.
The State Department also announced Wednesday that it was sanctioning five CJNG leaders, including "El Mencho," as specially designated global terrorists.
Also sanctioned this week was CJNG regional commander Audias Flores Silva, who the State Department said "controls clandestine laboratories used to produce methamphetamine and other illegal drugs trafficked to the United States."
Sanctioned as well was CJNG commander Ricardo Ruiz Velasco, who is the prime suspect in the shooting death last month of 23-year-old Mexican influencer Valeria Márquez during a livestream. Velasco and Márquez were believed to be in a romantic relationship, the State Department said.
The State Department is offering a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest of "El Mencho," and up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest of Silva.
FILE - The letters "CJNG" for the group's formal name, Jalisco New Generation Cartel, covers the facade of an abandoned home in El Limoncito, in the Michoacan state of Mexico, Oct. 30, 2021.
Eduardo Verdugo / AP
Meanwhile, El Mencho's son-in-law, Cristian Fernando Gutiérrez Ochoa, appeared in the same courtroom earlier Friday to plead guilty in a separate case to a money laundering conspiracy charge.
Gutierrez Ochoa was arrested toward the end of the Biden administration last year in California, where authorities have said he was living under a bogus name after faking his own death and fleeing Mexico.
Together, the prosecutions reflect the U.S. government's efforts to weaken the brutal Jalisco New Generation cartel that's responsible for importing staggering amounts of cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl into the United States — and track down its elusive leader, El Mencho.
The Trump administration has sought to turn up the pressure on CJNG and other cartels with the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation, which gives authorities new tools to prosecute those associated with cartels.
"You can't totally prosecute your way out of the cartel problem, but you can make an actual impact by letting people know that we're going to be enforcing this and showing that Mexico is being cooperative with us and then ultimately trying to get high-level targets to sort of set the organization back," Matthew Galeotti, who leads the Justice Department's criminal division, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
President Trump's Justice Department has declared dismantling CJNG and other cartels a top priority, and Galeotti said the U.S. in recent months has seen increased cooperation from Mexican officials. In February, Mexico sent 29 cartel figures — including drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was behind the killing of a U.S. DEA agent in 1985 — to the U.S. for prosecution.
The Trump administration has already charged a handful of defendants with terrorism offenses since designating CJNG and seven other Latin American crime organizations as FTOs in February. Galeotti said several additional indictments related to CJNG and other cartels remain under seal.
"We are taking a division-wide approach to this," Galeotti said. "We've got money laundering prosecutors who are not just focused on the cartels themselves ... but also on financial facilitators. So when we're taking this broad approach ... That's why I think we've had some of the really significant cases that we've had, and we've seen a very significant pipeline."
González Valencia pleaded guilty to international cocaine trafficking in 2022. Authorities said he went into hiding in Bolivia in 2015 after leading Los Cuinis alongside his brothers for more than a decade. He was arrested in 2017 under the first Trump administration after traveling to Brazil, and was later extradited to the U.S.
Los Cuinis used "air, land, sea and under-the-sea methods" to smuggle drugs bound for the U.S., prosecutors said. In one instance, authorities said González Valencia invested in a shipment of 4,000 kilograms of cocaine — roughly 8,818 pounds — that was packed in a semi-submersible vessel to travel from Colombia to Guatemala. Other methods employed by Los Cuinis include hiding drugs in frozen shark carcasses, prosecutors said. He's also accused of directing the killing of a rival.
González Valencia appeared in court wearing an orange jumpsuit and listened to the hearing through an interpreter over headphones. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell sealed part of the hearing, keeping the press and public out of the courtroom while lawyers argued over the sentence. It was not clear why the judge determined it had to be sealed. González Valencia's lawyer declined to comment after the hearing.
In the other case, Gutiérrez Ochoa was wanted in Mexico on allegations that he kidnapped two Mexican Navy members in 2021 in the hope of securing the release of El Mencho's wife after she had been arrested by Mexican authorities, prosecutors have said. Authorities have said he faked his own death and fled to the U.S. to avoid Mexican authorities, and that El Mencho told associates he killed Gutiérrez Ochoa for lying.
Rosalinda Gonzalez, the wife of El Mencho, was released from Mexican prison in February.
El Mencho's son, Rubén Oseguera — known as "El Menchito" — was sentenced in March to life in prison after his conviction in Washington's federal court of conspiring to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine for U.S. importation and using a firearm in a drug conspiracy.
In May, a former Mexican federal agent who testified against El Menchito in U.S. federal court was shot dead, along with his wife, about 60 miles outside of Mexico City.