Federal authorities charged a Whittier man with leading a conspiracy to supply guns and ammunition to members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, a drug trafficking group said by law enforcement officials to be one of the most powerful in Mexico.
Marco Antonio Santillan Valencia, 51, has been charged as a felon with conspiracy to circumvent restrictions on firearms exports, conspiracy to launder money and possession of ammunition.
Santillan and his co-defendants, including his son Marco Santillan Jr., 29, are charged with purchasing guns, ammunition and firearm components in Nevada, Oregon, Nebraska and Arizona and smuggling them into Mexico. The guns were bought with proceeds from drug sales, prosecutors charged.
An indictment returned in December and unsealed last week gives a sense of the scope of the alleged operation: Santillan Jr. and two other people stopped by San Bernardino County law enforcement carried 64,400 rounds of ammunition, 20 50-rounds -Ammo belts, scopes, $52,471 in cash and $10,000 in money orders, the document said.
According to the indictment, authorities seized guns and ammunition at various locations across the state: four guns in a home in Midway City, Orange County, 77,300 rounds of ammunition in a trailer in Westlake Village, boxes of gun components and bullets in a minivan in Whittier, and two guns at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, where an Orange County man attempted to smuggle guns, ammunition and cash into Mexico.
Santillan and all but one of his co-defendants were arrested last week. Rafael Magallon Castillo, who was charged with conspiracy to violate export restrictions, is a fugitive and is believed to be in Mexico, according to a US Attorney’s Office spokesman in Los Angeles. Magallon, 34, last lived in Oceano, south of San Luis Obispo.
Santillan has pleaded not guilty. He was previously found guilty in federal court in San Diego of conspiracy to import contraband in 1994 and was sentenced to six months in prison, court documents show. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The guns and ammunition were determined by law enforcement officials to belong to members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, known by its Spanish initials CJNG. Prosecutors cited a Facebook message in which Santillan Jr. allegedly said that “Mencho’s cartel” “buys everything.”
Authorities say the CJNG is headed by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho.” Oseguera, a 55-year-old former police officer, has been placed on a $10 million bounty by the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
In its 2021 threat assessment, the DEA warned that the CJNG is one of Mexico’s two dominant drug trafficking groups, along with the Sinaloa Cartel formerly led by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
In particular, the CJNG has been smuggling synthetic drugs — primarily methamphetamine and fentanyl — into the United States through the border cities of Tijuana, Juarez and Nuevo Laredo, agency officials wrote in the assessment. Most of the methamphetamine and fentanyl sold in Los Angeles is supplied by the group, the assessment said.
Authorities in Los Angeles warned two years ago that Oseguera’s organization was using drug proceeds to buy guns in the United States and then smuggled the guns and ammunition to Mexico. At that time, federal prosecutors accused four men of conspiring to buy assault weapons; One of the defendants, a chef at a Santa Ana seafood restaurant, reportedly asked a DEA informant if it was feasible to purchase several hundred AK-47s and AR-15s.
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