DEA Agent Reveals CJNG Conducted Surveillance at US Court Hearings of Menchito & Murdered Witnesses, Even After Sentencing

"Socalj" for Borderland Beat

The message that Mexican drug cartels want to send to the United States is clear: “We are here. We are among you.” This is how Special Agent Matthew W. Allen of the DEA, the U.S. anti-narcotics agency, explained it when he was asked about the risk posed by Mexican criminal organizations in the United States.

Allen, head of the agency’s Los Angeles division, said at a hearing before the U.S. Senate that members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) were monitoring DEA agents and witnesses during the trial of Rubén Oseguera González, "El Menchito," the son of cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera "El Mencho."

At the hearing, Allen recounted how the criminal group retaliated against family members of informants, an example of the violence this group routinely employs and the threat it poses to American citizens.

The DEA special agent asserted that they have evidence that cartel members are monitoring DEA agents in the United States and that some of these operations occurred in parallel with the Menchito trial. 

“In my 22 years-plus in the DEA in the Los Angeles area, and in other areas of the world, I’ve experienced several instances of cartels and criminal organizations surveilling our people, both in Mexico and the United States,” he explained. 

Allen asserts that these activities “are frequent,” and that his agents notice they are being spied on when they go out to execute a search or arrest warrant. When they realize they are being followed, they must notify local police so they can stop the suspect car and initiate an investigation. The agent used this activity as an example to demonstrate the danger that the men and women who work for the DEA face every day in their operations, even in their own country. “I’ve personally lost several friends on this job,” he lamented.

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee convened a hearing on Tuesday titled “The Thin Blue Line Protecting America from the Cartels” to assess the danger Mexican criminal organizations pose to its law enforcement.

Witnesses & Family Killed

To illustrate the violence they face, Allen stated that after the capture of "El Mencho’s" son and his prosecution in the United States, his father’s cartel retaliated in Mexico. “One of our major CJNG cases involved a key witness who was later executed in Mexico along with his wife. Separately, the daughter of a cooperating witness was murdered soon after the sentencing,” he added. “This horrific act of revenge underscores the threat these terrorists pose to U.S. security: adversaries who kill without hesitation and who reach across borders with impunity.”

Ivan Morales and his wife were slain in May 2025.

The witness and his wife executed was Ivan Morales. Morales was a highly decorated federal police officer who survived a fiery helicopter crash in 2015 during a raid where authorities tried to capture El Mencho. The downing of the helicopter was ordered by Menchito and part of the charges against him. Morales traveled to the US to testify about the attack.

Last month, he and his wife were executed 10 years to the day of the helicopter crash, while driving about 60 miles outside of Mexico City. Morales Corrales was gunned down in a neighborhood in the municipality of Temixco, in the state of Morelos. He had no security, not even an armored truck. The gunmen intercepted his black pickup truck and fired a dozen bullets at it. Both the former police officer and his companion, his wife, died instantly. The killers fled on a motorcycle toward Cuernavaca and have not yet been arrested.

The daughter of the cooperating witness who was killed in Mexico is still unnamed. 

According to the Los Angeles DEA agent’s statement, the woman was killed after the April 2025 sentencing of “Menchito” and was the daughter of one of the cooperating witnesses against Ruben.

Several prominent Mexican drug traffickers testified at his trial including his relative, Oscar “El Lobo” Nava Valencia of the Milenio Cartel, Elpidio "El Pilo" Mojarro Ramírez who worked with early iterations of CJNG, as well as Sinaloa/Juarez killer Jose Antonio “El Jaguar” Torres Marrufo and former Gulf Cartel leader Mario “X20/Pelon” Ramirez Trevino.

Shortly before the murders, Rubén Oseguera González had been sentenced to life in prison and ordered to forfeit over $6 billion in proceeds from the cartel’s drug trafficking by the District of Columbia Court in Washington.

Another witness in the trial recently passed, however it is believed he died naturally. Mario Ramírez Treviño, known as "El Pelón" or "X20," former leader of the Gulf Cartel, died on March 13, 2025, while in custody in a U.S. federal prison. He had also been a witness against Menchito in his trial. It was reported by the BOP that "El Pelón" died of natural causes at 63 years old.

In his statement, filed in September 2024, he recounted having met "El Menchito" at the Altiplano Prison in 2014. According to his testimony, Oseguera González asked him for help in obtaining weapons, including an M60 machine gun and a .50-caliber rifle, and arranging a cocaine purchase with his father.

Carlos Almada Castrillo was found hanged in his prison cell in Puente Grande in 2020. He was due to be extradited to the US and believed to have been set to testify against "Menchito" having essentially grown up in the cartel with him.

Later in 2020, Mexican Judge Uriel Villegas Ortiz and his wife were executed. The magistrate had overseen one of the Amparo cases involving "Menchito" including his prison transfer.

Several accusations against Menchito in court filings prior to the trial included accusations from a "jailhouse snitch." According to the defense, the witness, who was in custody with "Menchito" testified in court in February 2021 that he either was told or overheard the proffered evidence.

El Mencho’s Son-in-Law in California

At the hearing, the DEA agent detailed how some members of El Mencho’s family lived in a gated community in Riverside, California, “just down the street from the Chief of Police.” 

The home of Cristian Fernando Gutiérrez, "El Guacho," and his wife, who is the daughter of Nemesio Oseguera, was searched by the DEA, and they found garbage bags overflowing with Rolex luxury watches, exclusive designer handbags, and $1 million in cash. 

In total, the seized goods were valued at $2.25 million. 

“These cartel figures were living in luxury, embedded in our communities, hiding in plain sight. They not only live in our communities, but they also sneak their deadly products into our homes under false pretenses,” the agent emphasized.

El Guacho fled to the United States to live a life of luxury after faking his own death in Mexico, where he was involved in the kidnapping of two Mexican marines in November 2021. The crime was the CJNG’s response to the capture of Rosalinda González Valencia, "El Mencho’s" wife, in the Guadalajara metropolitan area. When he was finally arrested late last year, U.S. authorities accused him of being one of the cartel’s leaders and recounted how "El Mencho’s" son-in-law assumed a false identity to “evade justice and live a life of luxury in California.”

Last week, he struck a deal with US authorities to plead guilty to money laundering charges instead of the drug trafficking he was also accused of. It is not believed he is cooperating beyond the plea deal. The primary charge of money laundering involved the Riverside, California home that was purchased by a Mexican Pasión Azul Tequila firm allegedly tied to the CJNG. The tequila company's owner denied associations with the cartel via lawyer Victor Beltran Garcia who has been sanctioned by the US OFAC for representing CJNG figures, including "Menchito" during his detention in Mexico.

Laisha has not been arrested and is believed to still operate a small coffee shop in nearby Perris, California.

Source DOJ, El Pais, El Pais, Borderland Beat

Categories: CJNG, dea, El Mencho, menchito