A major suspected leader of a Mexican drug trafficking cartel was arrested in California, where he lived in opulence under a false identity after pretending to be dead, the US Department of Justice announced Thursday.
Cristian Fernando Gutierrez-Ochoa, 37, a senior member of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and son-in-law of the organization’s leader, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, was arrested Tuesday in Riverside, California, the ministry said in a statement. press release.
Deputy Justice Minister Lisa Monaco praised the police services’ “tireless efforts to find and arrest a cartel leader who apparently pretended to be dead and assumed a false identity to escape justice and live in luxury in California.
According to the indictment made public on Wednesday, Cristian Fernando Gutierrez-Ochoa had worked since 2014 for this cartel, one of the most violent criminal organizations in Mexico.
Charged with drug trafficking and money laundering, he is suspected of having coordinated the transport and distribution of some 40 tons of methamphetamine and two tons of cocaine from Mexico to the United States over this period.
Pursued in Mexico for acts of violence, including a double kidnapping in November 2021 intended to obtain the release of the cartel leader’s wife, Cristian Fernando Gutierrez-Ochoa had fled to the United States to live under a false identity with the daughter of it, according to the American judicial authorities.
“El Mencho”, the leader of the cartel, would have helped to give credibility to the hypothesis of his death by telling accomplices that he had killed him for lying to him, according to the same sources.
The United States has been offering a $10 million reward since 2018 for the arrest of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera.
In 2020, his son and alleged right-hand man, Rubén Oseguera González, “El Menchito”, was extradited to the United States where he is charged with drug trafficking.
