After a high-ranking cartel member accused of a murder-for-hire scheme in a wealthy United States suburb was extradited to the U.S. in late February to stand trial, experts on cartel operations warn that ordinary Americans could be caught in the crossfire of Mexican cartel feuds.
According to the Department of Justice, Jose Rodolfo Villarreal Hernandez, known as “El Gato,” was brought to the U.S. to face justice for his alleged orchestration of a murder that took place in May 2013 in Southlake, an affluent community outside Dallas, Texas.
Villarreal Hernandez is a Mexican national and former leader of the Beltran-Leyva Organization (BLO) Drug Cartel, whose hired cartel goons allegedly stalked and murdered Juan Jesus Guerrero Chapa, an attorney and U.S. government informant who represented the rival Gulf Cartel, authorities said.
Guerrero Chapa was gunned down in a daytime shooting in a busy Southlake shopping center while he and his wife were returning to their vehicle.
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Jose Rodolfo Villarreal-Hernandez is accused of an interstate stalking and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire scheme that left a 43-year-old man dead in May 2013. (FBI)
The killing in an American community such as Southlake shows that ordinary Americans should be more vigilant, both in their daily lives and online, as cartel members are increasingly embedding themselves within communities across the U.S., experts say.
“The answer is yes, the cartels have definitely infiltrated into the United States,” Jarrod Sadulski, owner of Sadulski Enterprises, told Fox News Digital.
Sadulski worked at the Department of Homeland Security via the Coast Guard for 26 years, with extensive experience in human trafficking, counter-terrorism and homeland security.
“So because of the open borders the last four years, there is an exponentially higher amount of criminal bad actors in the United States, to include cartel members,” he said. “And so where people should always remain vigilant, now is the time for a heightened level of vigilance because of the people that have been brought into the United States.”
Juan Jesus Guerrero-Chapa, the personal lawyer for the leader of the Gulf cartel and a government informant, was fatally shot on May 22, 2013, after he and his wife were ambushed as they sat in their Range Rover at Southlake Town Square, authorities have said. (Fort Worth Star-Telegram archive/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Ali Hopper works with Sadulski and is also the founder of a nonprofit called GUARD Against Trafficking. Both have testified before Congress regarding their research and expertise with Mexican drug cartels.
Hopper said that younger, newer groups like Tren de Aragua and their members are far more violent than their cartel predecessors.
“They operate with impunity,” she said. “They don’t have any regard for life, whether it’s the life of an adult or a child. And they will deal in whatever makes the most money the fastest. And the new guard has virtually no structure. It’s kind of like survival of the fittest.”
The pair also noted that cartel members are making more of an effort to blend in. Some have stopped getting identifying tattoos, which used to make them easy targets for law enforcement. Many have also started legitimate businesses in the U.S. to launder money through.
Mexican marines seized an RPG-7 rocket launcher, hand grenades, firearms, cocaine and military uniforms from alleged members of the Zetas drug cartel. (Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images)
Villarreal Hernandez blamed Guerrero Chapa for the death of his father, which was his motive for the alleged murder-for-hire plot, authorities said.
After spending more than two years on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List, Villarreal Hernandez was captured in 2023 by Mexican authorities in Atizapán de Zaragoza, Mexico.
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He is now in the U.S. to stand trial on charges of interstate stalking and murder-for-hire, both of which carry maximum sentences of life in prison or death.
