U.S. Government Declares CJNG the New Public Enemy Number One

On July 23, 2026, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF), working in coordination with Mexico's Unidad de Inteligencia Financiera (UIF), announced a major round of sanctions targeting individuals and entities linked to CJNG. The measures were designed to disrupt both the cartel's primary sources of revenue and its secondary income streams, including fuel theft, smuggling, and timeshare fraud. With these latest designations, U.S. authorities have now carried out 30 enforcement actions against more than 250 CJNG-linked individuals and entities.

Unlike previous sanctions designations, the U.S. government has identified CJNG as the second-largest fentanyl and drug trafficking organization affecting the United States. It has also designated individuals involved in sophisticated money laundering methodologies and sought to impact the cartel's entire structure by targeting as many operational components as possible, from its leadership to facilitators and enablers, including corrupt officials who financially benefited from the cartel's operations, complicit family members, and alleged money launderers.

The Criminal Leadership

 

As previously reported, the U.S. government has identified dual U.S.-Mexican citizen Juan Carlos Valencia González (a.k.a. "El Pelón" or "El 03") as the principal leader of the CJNG. The U.S. Department of State has offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his arrest and conviction on charges related to the manufacture, transportation, and distribution of large quantities of narcotics, as well as the organization of numerous violent crimes.

The Captains

Audias Flores Silva (a.k.a. "El Jardinero") is one of the highest-ranking CJNG leaders publicly targeted by the U.S. Treasury Department. On April 14, 2021, the Treasury Department announced his designation and offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his capture. He controls vast territories across Mexico, where he oversees the production and export of synthetic drugs to the United States. He was later apprehended on April 27, 2026, during a targeted military operation conducted by the Mexican Navy's Special Forces (SEMAR) in Nayarit.

Gonzalo Mendoza Gaytán (a.k.a. "El Sapo") is a senior CJNG commander who has served as the plaza boss for Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco. He has also been linked to the Izaguirre Ranch in Teuchitlán and the escuelitas (schools), where he allegedly played a central role in the forced recruitment of new CJNG members. These facilities were reportedly used as training grounds for recruits who were lured through fraudulent job offers before being subjected to brutal indoctrination.

Lieutenants

Julio César Montero Pinzón (a.k.a. "El Tarjetas") directed a sophisticated international fraud scheme that targeted U.S. owners of timeshare properties in Mexico. Over the past decade, this operation allegedly laundered hundreds of millions of dollars in non-drug revenue used to finance the CJNG's drug and arms trafficking activities. Montero Pinzón is also an alleged leader of elite hitman units that have access to military-grade weaponry and are responsible for acts of extreme violence and high-profile assassinations.

Carlos Andrés Rivera Varela (a.k.a. "La Firma"), a dual Colombian-Mexican national originally from Cali, Colombia, has resided in Mexico for many years. U.S. intelligence identifies him as a ruthless, high-ranking CJNG leader operating primarily from Puerto Vallarta, where he serves as both an enforcement commander and financial coordinator.

Francisco Javier Gudiño Haro (a.k.a. "La Gallina") is a high-ranking operator within the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). He works alongside Carlos Andrés Rivera Varela ("La Firma") as a primary enforcement leader under top cartel commander Gonzalo Mendoza Gaytán ("El Sapo"). He is responsible for directing cartel payrolls and allocating weekly salaries to hitmen and lookouts (halcones).

Julio Alberto Castillo Rodríguez, a.k.a. "El Chorro," is the son-in-law of the cartel's now-deceased leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes ("El Mencho"), through his marriage to Jessica Johanna Oseguera González. He is responsible for maintaining criminal control over the strategic Pacific port of Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico, which serves as the principal point of entry for chemical precursors used in the production of synthetic drugs.

The Whole Picture

 

All Against "El Jardinero"

Although imprisoned in Mexico, U.S. authorities continue to assess "El Jardinero" as an active leader who maintains operational control over large portions of Jalisco, Nayarit, Michoacán, Guerrero, and Zacatecas. From prison, he reportedly continues to direct an extensive network of subordinates, including family members, plaza bosses, and financial and logistical associates operating across multiple territories.

The Botello Family Criminal Network

One of CJNG's principal enforcement structures is the Botello family criminal network. The sanctions demonstrate that CJNG increasingly relies on family-based criminal cells to maintain territorial control and operational control. The principal CJNG enforcer within this network is Gerardo Botello Rozales (a.k.a. "El Cachas"), who is considered a senior member of the organization with long-standing ties to its leadership. El Cachas has overseen CJNG operations across multiple Mexican states and has also been linked to the Izaguirre Ranch training center. The family's criminal activities extend beyond drug trafficking to include huachicol (fuel theft). In recent years, El Cachas and his nephews, Gustavo Botello Rodríguez ("Gustavo Botello") and Wiliams Geovanni Botello Rodríguez ("Wiliams Botello"), have operated a CJNG enforcement cell.

The CJNG Fentanyl Route

CJNG Identified by U.S. authorities as the second-largest fentanyl trafficking organization affecting the United States, CJNG controls a route used to produce and export fentanyl from Michoacán. This route is controlled by CJNG enforcer Feliciano Ledezma Ramírez (a.k.a. "Chano Limones"), who is responsible for overseeing the cartel's fentanyl operations and is also involved in significant violence in the Nuevo Italia and Múgica areas of Michoacán.

Additionally, Alma Laura Mena Alvarado ("Mena") and her husband, José Mora León ("Mora"), own a logistics company engaged in diverting synthetic fentanyl precursors to the CJNG trafficking network. Mena is also responsible for overseeing and participating in huachicol (fuel theft) activities in territories controlled by CJNG. For this operation, they control two companies based in Mexico: Strong Energy S.A. de C.V., a petroleum and natural gas extraction company, and Transic Logistic S.A. de C.V., a logistics company.

Cocaine Trafficking Network

U.S. authorities are also targeting a CJNG-linked cocaine trafficking network led by twin brothers Marcial Apolinar Díaz Robles and Pedro Marcial Díaz Robles. Cocaine trafficking to the United States and international markets, ranging from Europe to Asia, remains one of the cartel's principal sources of illicit revenue. The Díaz Robles twins maintain close relationships with CJNG's inner circle and use these connections to traffic large shipments of cocaine from South America through Mexico and onward to the United States and Europe. The network's principal money launderer, Jorge Zepeda Rodríguez ("Zepeda"), is closely involved in the twins' cocaine trafficking operations.

Also designated under the sanctions are Rodolfo Alejandro Loza García (a.k.a. "El 26"), one of CJNG's principal narcotics traffickers and enforcement operators, who is engaged in acts of violence in northern Jalisco, and Francisco Noé González Ramírez (a.k.a. "El F1"), another high-ranking CJNG member engaged in drug trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, and violence in Zacatecas.

The Financial Structure

To sustain its operations, CJNG relies on an extensive network of professional money launderers responsible for managing, processing, and returning illicit proceeds generated through the cartel's various criminal enterprises. Without these money launderers, the cartel would be unable to move large amounts of money across different jurisdictions or effectively use those funds to pay bribes, purchase weapons, and finance the payrolls of its various enforcement cells. For this reason, targeting the cartel's financial structure represents one of the most significant blows that security agencies can inflict on the organization, as it directly weakens its operational and financial capabilities.

The network consists of numerous individuals and entities that coordinate the collection of bulk cash proceeds from multiple U.S. cities and criminal activities before transferring the funds back to Mexico and ultimately returning them to the cartel's leadership. Through this scheme, the network has allegedly laundered tens of millions of dollars annually since at least 2023.

Overall, these sanctions represent one of the largest and most comprehensive efforts undertaken by the United States against the CJNG criminal organization. Rather than focusing solely on senior leaders, the designations target the cartel's entire criminal structure, including its operational commanders, logistics networks, financial facilitators, family-based criminal networks, and revenue-generating activities. This approach reflects a broader strategy implemented by the U.S. government to disrupt the organization's ability to sustain its criminal operations while also exposing and targeting its financial and political support networks. Instead of concentrating exclusively on individual leaders, this strategy recognizes that dismantling the CJNG requires targeting the organization as a whole, since its operational model does not rely on a single individual to control all of the cartel's activities.

 

Sources: Treasury.gov; OFAC; OFAC; State.gov; fbi.gov