A federal judge sentenced the son of a top Sinaloa cartel leader to five years in prison Wednesday for trying to distribute fentanyl while still under federal supervision for an earlier drug trafficking conviction.
The sentence delivered in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria marks the end of a remarkable case that Mexican authorities hope could deliver Damaso Lopez Serrano to that country to face charges in the death of a renowned journalist.
Lopez Serrano, listed as 37 years old in court papers and known as “Mini Lic,” is the son of Damaso Lopez Nuñez, formerly one of the cartel’s most powerful figures. Lopez Serrano pleaded guilty in May to attempted possession with intent to distribute fentanyl after an FBI sting. The operation found him coordinating the delivery of what was purported to be three kilograms of the drug to an associate in Los Angeles. The supposed drugs were actually a sham substance that federal agents had intercepted.
Mexico has sought Lopez Serrano’s extradition since 2020, charging him with ordering the killing of Javier Valdez, an award-winning journalist in Mexico who covered the drug trade in Culiacán. The United States repeatedly refused, according to Mexican officials, saying Lopez Serrano was a protected witness providing information to U.S. authorities. His latest conviction could change that calculation.
In imposing the sentence, U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Trenga chose not to deviate from a joint recommendation under a plea agreement between Justice Department prosecutors and defense attorneys. Lopez Serrano faced a mandatory minimum of five years and a maximum of 40 years in prison. His five-year sentence will run concurrently with a five-year sentence for violating his previous supervised release, and it will be followed by five years of supervised release.
Before receiving the sentence, Lopez Serrano stood before Trenga in a green jailhouse jumpsuit, wearing glasses and a buzz cut, and asked for forgiveness from his family and others.
“There are no words to express how regretful I am,” Lopez Serrano said through a Spanish interpreter. Voicing a sentiment similar to the one he delivered ahead of being sentenced in 2022 for his previous conviction, Lopez Serrano said he is a changed man and his goal is to start “a new life from scratch.”
“It’s my deepest wish to be back with my family and show them that I have changed,” Lopez Serrano said.
Lopez Serrano’s lawyer, Matthew J. Lombard, who has represented him since his previous case in California, declined to comment after the hearing.
In his initial trafficking case, Lopez Serrano admitted to coordinating the importation of “tonnage quantities” of drugs, and he faced up to life in prison. But after apparently cooperating with U.S. authorities, he received a sentence of time served in 2022 and walked free on supervised release. Within two years, he was caught trying to traffic what was purported to be fentanyl, and now he faces the possibility of being sent to Mexico on charges in the Valdez case.
Valdez covered the drug trade for nearly two decades in Culiacán, the capital of the Sinaloa state, and founded the news outlet Ríodoce. He was shot multiple times in broad daylight on May 15, 2017 — days after publishing a column that portrayed Lopez Serrano in diminishing terms.
In the column, Valdez described Lopez Serrano based on his interviews as a “pistolero de utilería” — a prop pistol gunman — in a cutting description of the cartel scion as unfit for leadership. Valdez portrayed him as said to be “good for chatting but not for business,” someone who “only drinks the sweet rewards that his father sowed and harvested,” according to excerpts republished later by Ríodoce.
Mexican prosecutors presented Valdez’s writings as a motive for the killing. According to Ríodoce’s reporting on the investigation by Mexican prosecutors, the assassins received as payment a silver pistol with white grips bearing the images of Lopez Serrano and his father.
Two men were convicted: Heriberto “P” received 14 years in prison in 2020; Juan “P” was sentenced to 32 years in 2021. Lopez Serrano, prosecutors say, was the one who ordered the hit.
Mexican officials obtained an arrest warrant for Lopez Serrano in 2020, but the United States repeatedly refused to extradite him. Speaking at the Mexican president’s morning news conference days after Lopez Serrano’s December 2024 arrest on the drug charge for which he was sentenced this week, Mexico’s then-Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero explained why.
“They had indicated that he was a witness protected by the United States government and that he was giving them a lot of information,” Gertz said. “Because of that, they could not help us in that way.”
Lopez Serrano’s journey through the U.S. justice system began in July 2017, when he walked across the border and surrendered to federal agents. The Drug Enforcement Administration called him “the highest-ranking Mexican cartel leader ever to self-surrender in the United States.”
Court records describe Lopez Nuñez, known as “El Licenciado,” as a former right-hand man to Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán who helped the drug lord escape from Mexican federal prison twice — including through a mile-long tunnel from Mexico’s highest-security prison in 2015. Lopez Nuñez was extradited to the United States in 2018 and sentenced to life in prison in the same Alexandria courthouse where his son was sentenced Wednesday.
At his 2018 plea hearing in San Diego, Lopez Serrano admitted he had been a leader within the Sinaloa cartel who helped coordinate the importation of “tonnage quantities” of cocaine into the U.S. between 2003 and 2016.
He faced a mandatory minimum of 10 years and a maximum of life in prison. Yet in September 2022, after more than four years of delays, a federal judge sentenced him to time served and five years of supervised release. Mexican authorities have said Lopez Serrano was cooperating with the U.S. government — an assertion consistent with the repeatedly delayed sentencing.
Lopez Serrano moved from Southern California to Virginia in 2024. A few months later, he was discussing fentanyl importation from Mexico to Southern California with an individual who was secretly providing information to the FBI, according to court records.
Using an encrypted cellphone app, Lopez Serrano told the FBI’s informant that he had people in Southern California who could distribute fentanyl, according to court records. They discussed costs, potential profits and how Lopez Serrano could finance the transactions through the sale of family properties in Mexico, according to court records.
In late 2024, the individual told Lopez Serrano he could have four kilograms of fentanyl available for delivery to Los Angeles the following week. Lopez Serrano provided a phone number for the person who would take delivery.
Unknown to Lopez Serrano, the FBI had intercepted the shipment. Lopez Serrano’s associate arrived at the prearranged location, got into a car with an FBI cooperator, looked over the packages and was arrested.
Lopez Serrano’s arrest afterward triggered a quick response from Mexico. Within days, Gertz appeared at the presidential news conference and renewed the country’s demand for extradition.
“He is the mastermind behind that murder,” Gertz said of Valdez’s killing, adding that Mexican authorities had “insisted on countless occasions” on Lopez Serrano’s extradition.
“Now, with this situation in which they themselves are acknowledging that this individual is committing a crime, I believe that there are more than enough reasons for them to support us now,” Gertz said.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment this week about whether the government would support Mexico’s extradition request.
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