The Treasury Department on June 18 sanctioned five leaders of Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), including the leader known as “El Mencho” and the main suspect in the killing of influencer Valeria Márquez.
“Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned five Mexico-based leaders of Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG),” the agency said in a statement.
When the OFAC sanctions someone, that individual’s assets are frozen, or inaccessible, and U.S. citizens are barred from doing business with him.
“OFAC is designating CJNG’s notorious leader Ruben Oseguera Cervantes (a.k.a “El Mencho”), along with three other senior cartel members” and “is also sanctioning a CJNG commander, closely linked to El Mencho ... as the prime suspect in the recent murder of Mexican influencer Valeria Marquez during a live social media broadcast,” the statement said.
The OFAC said that Oseguera’s “unique leadership style has allowed CJNG to function like a franchise business across several Mexican states, and to generate billions of dollars in profits from trafficking fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin.”
Oseguera and other CJNG leaders have engaged in extortion and paid corrupt officials to expand their criminal activities, and under his leadership, cartel members have murdered rivals, Mexican law enforcement officers, judges, and other government officials, the agency added.
On Dec. 4, 2024, the State Department offered up to $15 million for information leading to his arrest or conviction.
Another senior member close to Oseguera is Ricardo Ruiz Velasco, from a CJNG special forces unit, sanctioned as the alleged head of the cartel’s communications and propaganda, who for more than a decade has been implicated in high-profile killings, “deadly attacks on Mexican police officers and the killings of a Jalisco State official and Venezuelan model,” the OFAC said.
It added that Ruiz is the prime suspect in the femicide of his alleged partner, social media influencer Valeria Márquez, who was shot dead on May 13 during a TikTok livestream from her beauty salon in Zapopan, Jalisco.
“The vicious attack highlights the brutal prevalence of femicide, or the killing of women on account of their gender, in Mexico,” the OFAC said. “Femicide often goes unpunished and affects a significant portion of Mexico’s women.”
The office added that femicide is used to send messages to other cartels.
“CJNG is a brutally violent cartel responsible for a significant share of fentanyl and other illicit drugs entering the United States,” the OFAC added.
The CJNG was designated by the State Department as a global terrorist organization in February.
Other sanctioned leaders include Julio Alberto Castillo Rodríguez, Oseguera’s son-in-law and a prominent member of the cartel; Gonzalo Mendoza Gaytán, who allegedly ran the Rancho Izaguirre recruitment center and “directed lieutenants to train new CJNG recruits and kill those who defied instructions,” in addition to his alleged involvement in the murder of numerous Mexican law enforcement officers; and Audias Flores Silva, the cartel’s commander in Zacatecas, Guerrero, Nayarit, Jalisco, and Michoacán.
The State Department offered up to $5 million for information on Flores for allegedly “clandestine laboratories in Mexico to produce fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, and other illicit drugs trafficked into the United States.”
