Co-founder of Jalisco New Generation drug cartel pleads guilty

The co-founder of the Mexico-based Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), Érick Valencia Salazar, has pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced.

Valencia Salazar, known as "El 85", was captured by the Mexican army in 2022 in the state of Jalisco and was among a group of 29 alleged drug lords extradited to the United States in February 2025 to stand trial.

The Drug Enforcement Administration said Valencia Salazar "helped build CJNG into a ruthless organisation that uses violence as a business model - murdering for control in Mexico while flooding the United States with poison".

His sentencing is scheduled on 31 July.

In a statement, the DOJ said that Valencia Salazar had changed his earlier not guilty plea to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute 5kg or more of cocaine to the United States.

The mandatory minimum sentence is 10 years in prison.

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel is one of the most powerful criminal organisations founded in Mexico.

In February, its members unleashed a wave of violence across 20 Mexican states after news spread that its leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, better known as "El Mencho", had died as a result of injuries sustained during his capture by Mexican security forces.

Last year, the US President Donald Trump designated the CJNG as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO).

The Trump administration has stepped up its battle against the cartels, which it says threaten "the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere".

Trump has also pressured his Mexican counterpart, Claudia Sheinbaum, to do more to combat Mexico-based criminal groups such as the CJNG.

The capture and subsequent death of "El Mencho" was hailed by Sheinbaum as proof of the armed forces' commitment to track down Mexico's most notorious drug lords.