Jose Maria Guizar-Valencia, a former high ranking leader with the Los Zetas Cartel, recently entered a guilty plea to conspiracy to import tons of cocaine into the United States. U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani believes this will have large-scale effects on other cartel members.
"Today the cartels were put on notice," said Hamdani. "After a long and hard fought battle, we brought another ruthless cartel leader to justice. Jose Maria Guizar-Valencia may have thought he was untouchable, but now he feels the reach, power and persistence of the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He once led the drug activity in a large swath of Central America."
In a press release, Hamdani also stated that "the residents of the Southern District of Texas are now safer." At their height, Los Zetas Cartel controlled much of the Texas-Mexico border.
According to investigations that led to his arrest, about a decade ago it was revealed that Los Zetas had extended their operations to Central and South America, and that Guizar-Valencia was responsible for large portions of Guatemala and for coordinating the flow of cocaine from Guatemala up through Mexico, and into the United States from 2007 to 2014.
Guizar-Valencia was on the run for many years, before eventually being arrested by Mexican authorities in 2018. He will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Diana Saldana at a later date, where he could be facing life imprisonment.
According to Borderland Beat, following the death of Zetas founder Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano and the arrest of his successor Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, Guizar-Valencia had assumed control of his own splinter faction of the cartel, which operated largely in the southern region of Mexico. Guizar-Valencia worked closely with another Zetas splinter group, which would later become the current-day Cartel del Noreste.
Los Zetas started as an enforcer gang for the infamous Gulf Cartel, before splintering away in the mid-2000s. They became one of the most feared and violent cartels in Mexico. Before their fragmentation, they were one of the most powerful cartels as well.
In a press release, DEA Special Agent in Charge Daniel C. Comeaux, Houston Division, stated that Guizar-Valencia pleading guilty shows "the commitment of the DEA and our law enforcement partners to battle against global drug trafficking organizations."
