El Ruso Added to the FBI's Wanted Fugitive List

"HEARST" and "Socalj" for Borderland Beat 

El Ruso, a direct subordinate of Mayo Zambada and the founder of Sinaloa Cartel group “los Rusos”, was just named on the FBI’s wanted fugitive list. 

On April 1, 2024, the FBI Los Angeles office announced on Twitter that Jesus Alexandro Sanchez Felix, alias “El Ruso”, is wanted “for his alleged involvement in narcotics trafficking, hostage taking, and money laundering in connection with the Sinaloa [Cartel].”

The tweet included a photo of the wanted poster and linked to the new listing for him on their website. 

Let’s review the new information about El Ruso featured in the listing. 

New Information in Ruso's FBI Wanted Fugitive Listing

The FBI lists out El Ruso’s real name as being “Jesus Alexandro Sanchez Felix” which is interesting because back in July 2023 it was revealed that a driver’s license had been seized from Ruso’s vehicle which featured the name “Juan José Ponce Félix.”

It’s unclear if this is an indication that it was a fake driver’s license and “Juan José Ponce Félix” is yet another one of the fake names that Ruso uses. Or if the FBI under some obligation to continue using the name which was listed in the original criminal indictment against him.

The FBI writes that El Ruso was born on either June 20, 1982, or June 30, 1982, which would make Ruso 42 years old in 2024.

They list out his height as 5’11” and his weight as 180 pounds. 

They write that he “is believed to be in Mexicali, Baja [California].” They add that he also has ties to the Mexican state of Sinaloa and the US states of California and Oregon. 

They note that he “should be considered armed and dangerous and an escape risk.”

The FBI website’s profile for Ruso features five images. Three of these five images have not been published before (or at the very least, they have not been widely circulated online). The three are shown below. 

The first image appears to be an attempt at an age regression. 

Law enforcement will often create new images which depict a person older, or with different hairstyles/hair color based on existing imagery of a wanted fugitive, a missing person, or a set of unidentified remains.

The new images are supposed to help the public recognize the person so they can submit tips which aid the investigation. These images are also usually labeled as “age-progressed” as seen in this example from the FBI website. 

It's uncommon, but not unheard of, for law enforcement to release images which actually depict the person as younger (an age regression ), rather than older (an age progression) than they appear in their existing photos. 

It's unclear why the FBI wanted to feature an image of a younger El Ruso since he'll only be getting older as time goes on.

It's possible that they are hoping to hear from people who knew Ruso when he was younger, but it's a curious investigation/prosecution strategy considering how witness testimony is considered less reliable when the witness is recalling older events. 

Age progressions and regressions are utilized by a number of different agencies /organizations like the FBI, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the United States Marshals Service. 

There are artists which specialize in age-progressions, such as Michael W. Streed. 

Normally the age progressions  released by a federal agency are high quality and they largely avoid the uncanny valley.

But this new photo of Ruso… well, it's not that. The image appears to have been generated through an AI filter or program, and the result has not been adjusted by an artist to fix abnormalities are often generated by AI. The “base” image put into the AI program appears to be a photo of Ruso that was first published by Zeta Tijuana in July 2023. The image was, unfortunately, clearly stretched when it was published, making Ruso look inhumanely wide. By feeding the AI-program an already stretched image of Ruso, you end up with an even more inhuman result.

Additionally, in the original photo, shadow can be seen beneath Ruso's ears, on the wall behind him. The AI program isn't able to recognize that it's a shadow and it ended up recreating that shadow in a warm, skin-like tone, giving Ruso the appearance of a second set of earlobes but this is fairly easy to overlook at smaller resolutions. It's unclear why the FBI wanted to feature an image of a younger El Ruso since he'll only be getting older as time goes on. It's possible that they are hoping to hear from people who knew Ruso when he was younger, but it's a curious investigation/prosecution strategy considering how witness testimony is considered much less reliable when the witness is recalling older events. The second “new” image released by the FBI shows Ruso at an age similar to the Zeta photograph.

It's a relatively high resolution image as far as photos of cartel figures go and may be the closest to Ruso's current appearance.

The third “new” photo is captioned as having been taken in March 2002. Based on his listed date of birth, Ruso would be 20 years old in the photo and it was likely taken during the early stages of his criminal career.

The FBI listing revealed, seemingly for the first time, that El Ruso has been indicted in the US and there is a warrant out for his arrest. In October 2015, El Ruso was indicted in a Los Angeles court on the following charges:

• Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Conspiracy

• Violent Crime in Aid of Racketeering

• Conspiracy to Distribute Controlled Substances

• Conspiracy to Import Controlled Substances

• Hostage Taking Conspiracy and Hostage Taking

• Conspiracy to Launder Money

• Carry and Use of a Firearm in Furtherance of a Crime of Violence or Drug Trafficking Crime

• Criminal Forfeiture

It's interesting to note that Melvin Perez Cardenas, another wanted fugitive with a listing, was indicted on the same day, in the same case as El Ruso. 

Inexplicable Design Decisions

Any government agency which communicates with the general public has an obligation to put some thought into the way they are communicating. 

This is especially true when a government agency is asking the general public for more information about a certain suspect and when the agency is communicating important information about a dangerous criminal.

A big part of making a new Wanted Fugitive listing is the creation of their “wanted poster”, which is available on their website as a PDF for anybody to download, print, and post in public spaces.

 

These posters have a standard format that appears to support up to four images, so only four of the five images featured on the website could be included.

 

But, whoever made the wanted fugitive poster for El Ruso made a number of puzzling decisions.

They are showing the exact same image of Ruso twice.  

Image #2 and Image #3 are the exact same photo. The only difference between the photos is that Image #2 is adjusted to be lighter, zoomed in, and stretched, making Ruso look unnaturally wide. 

Image #3 appears to be in every way the higher quality version of the image, it is simply a bit too dark, likely due to it being a photo of a computer screen. The photo settings of Image #3 could have simply been adjusted and then Image #2 wouldn't need to be included at all.

The AI-generated photo of "younger" Ruso is included on the poster instead of the actual photo of young Ruso.

The photo of Ruso taken in March 2002 is not included on the poster at all and its instead relegated to only being shown on the FBI’s online listing. 

When given the choice, real photos - rather than AI generated ones - should be published because AI images may not be accurate to what the person actually looks/looked like.

The "default", primary photo spot on both the poster and website show the AI age regression image and not a real image of Ruso.

 

Both English readers and Spanish readers negatively view a set of images from left to right because this is how we read text, from left to right.

This means the photo on the left is always viewed first and subconsciously seen as the “primary” image. Again, real photos should always take precedent over artificially generated ones.

The age regression image is not clearly labeled as being an age regression or AI generated despite image captioning being a functionality built into the website.

They labeled the photo of younger Ruso as “Photograph taken March 2002”, therefore, it should be easy to label the age regression. Labeling this image as AI generated to clarify that it may not be accurate to his current appearance or even his previous appearance seems relatively important.

Oftentimes criticism like this is met with a response about how “some poor intern was stuck putting the poster together and they just didn’t have much time or design experience,” but this misses the point entirely. 

The decisions made about which photos to include on the wanted poster of a major drug trafficker who is responsible for smuggling large amounts of fentanyl into the US should not be left up to an intern, nor any employee who isn’t going to put thought into it. 

Communicating clearly and effectively with the US public is a vital function of law enforcement agencies and these kinds of decisions should be made thoughtfully.

Sources: FBI Website Listing, FBI Wanted Poster, FBI Los Angeles Office Tweet, Zeta Tijuana

 

 

 

Further Reading on El Ruso

 

The Attempt to Arrest El Ruso That was Stopped by FGR Agents Who Were Acting as His Bodyguards

 

Chapitos Attempt to Kill El Ruso