Mexico City. A brother-in-law of the Mexican drug trafficker “El Mencho”, Gerardo González Valencia, who was a leader of Los Cuinis, has been sentenced this Friday in the United States to life imprisonment, the Department of Justice reported.
According to court documents, between 2003 and 2016 Gerardo González Valencia, alias Lalo, was one of the leaders of the Los Cuinis drug trafficking organization, “responsible for importing large amounts of cocaine” from South America to the United States, it said in a statement.
The Cuinis are closely linked to the Mexican Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), and both use “extreme violence,” accuses Washington.
Gerardo González Valencia, 45, invested in and personally coordinated shipments of tons of cocaine to the United States, some of which were intercepted by US and Mexican security forces.
The Department of Justice cites the seizure of about 280 kilos in a semi-submersible and another 750 hidden in frozen shark carcasses. He also accuses him of having ordered the killing of rival drug traffickers and of having supplied weapons to drug traffickers.
This ruling “sends a clear message to drug cartel leaders that the DEA will stop at nothing to dismantle criminal networks that threaten the safety and health of the American people,” said Anne Milgram, director of the US drug enforcement agency, quoted in the statement.
And it “reflects the magnitude of the damage these drug organizations cause in our communities,” adds Deputy Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr, of the Justice Department’s criminal division.
