Co-Founder of Cartel Jalisco Terror Group Pleads Guilty to Drug Charges

A California man, co-founder of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, has pleaded guilty to federal drug conspiracy charges in U.S. federal court and awaits sentencing. Cartel Jalisco is currently considered one of the most powerful drug cartels in Mexico, known not only for the use of thousands of armed men, but also for the widespread use of explosives in its attacks throughout Mexico. CJNG is one of six Mexican cartels currently listed as foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S. government.

This week, Erick “El 85” Valencia Salazar, 49, of Santa Clara, California, appeared before a U.S. federal judge and pleaded guilty to a drug conspiracy charge. Federal prosecutors agreed to dismiss various other charges against him. Valencia is scheduled to be sentenced July 31, where he faces a minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The call comes just weeks after Mexican military forces carried out a U.S.-led operation that led to the assassination of CJNG co-founder and supreme leader Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, as well as two other top leaders.

According to information released by the U.S. Department of Justice, Valencia and his relatives worked with various other cartels and later created the Milenio cartel and its financial arm known as Los Cuinis, which operated for several years in the shadows. Under the leadership of El Mencho, the Milenio Cartel became CJNG and, in a short time, rose from obscurity to one of Mexico’s most feared cartels, known for extreme levels of violence and the use of terrorist tactics to establish dominance. CJNG has been associated with numerous cartel battlefields where its victims were not only cremated, but in some cases, in Mexico, and videos shared on social media show CJNG members eating the flesh of their rivals and victims as a sign of dominance.

Breitbart Texas has widely reported how CJNG created paramilitary forces and recruited Colombian terrorist fighters to expand the use of explosives as part of their tactics. Over time, CJNG pushed the boundaries of using drones to deliver explosives, a tactic that eventually spread to other cartels and has since become common in Mexico.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning Breitbart News Foundation journalist. He co-founded the Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Breitbart senior management. You can follow it Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.