A high-ranking Mexican cartel leader who faked his own death to “live a life of luxury” in California has been arrested and charged with drug trafficking, U.S. officials said Thursday.
Cristian Fernando Gutierrez-Ochoa was arrested in Riverside, California, on Tuesday, the Justice Department said in a statement.
Gutierrez-Ochoa is the son-in-law of Nemesio Oseguera-Cervantes, 58, also known as “El Mencho,” the leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, which the officials described as “one of the world’s most violent and prolific drug trafficking organizations.”
Nicole Argentieri, a senior Justice Department official, said Gutierrez-Ochoa “allegedly directed the importation of tons of methamphetamine and cocaine into the United States and engaged in violence to aid the cartel’s criminal activities.”
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Gutierrez-Ochoa “allegedly faked his own death and assumed a false identity to evade justice and live a life of luxury in California.”
According to court documents, Gutierrez-Ochoa began working for the Jalisco cartel in 2014 and coordinated the shipment of 40,000 kilograms (88,000 pounds) of methamphetamine and 2,000 kilograms of cocaine from Mexico to the United States.
In 2021, he allegedly kidnapped two members of the Mexican navy in an attempt to secure the release of Oseguera-Cervantes’s wife, who had been arrested by the Mexican authorities.
Oseguera-Cervantes, the Jalisco cartel founder, has also been indicted in the United States and the State Department has offered a $10 million reward for his capture.
“He is the number one priority for DEA and frankly for federal law enforcement in the United States,” DEA agent Matthew Donahue told CBS News in 2019.
“El Mencho’s” son was convicted in a U.S. federal court in September of charges that he used violence, including the deadly downing of a military helicopter, to help his father operate one of the country’s largest and most dangerous narcotics trafficking organizations.
Rubén Oseguera, known as “El Menchito,” was convicted after a trial 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 December 2022, the Mexican army captured Antonio Oseguera, the brother of “El Mencho.” He allegedly oversaw violent actions and logistics, and bought weapons and laundered money for the Jalisco cartel. The U.S. Treasury Department listed Antonio Oseguera’s alias as “El Tony Montana,” an apparent reference to the fictional protagonist of the 1983 gangster film “Scarface.”
The Jalisco cartel is better known for producing millions of doses of deadly fentanyl and smuggling them into the United States disguised to look like Xanax, Percocet or oxycodone. Such pills cause about 70,000 overdose deaths per year in the United States.
“Defeating the two cartels responsible for the deadly drug crisis in the United States is the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)’s top operational priority, and with the arrest of Cristian Fernando Gutierrez-Ochoa, we are much closer,” DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in a statement Thursday.
Earlier this year, the U.S. imposed sanctions on a group of Mexican accountants and firms allegedly linked to a timeshare fraud ring run by the Jalisco cartel in a multi-million dollar scheme targeting Americans.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.