When the Mexican authorities first arrested Erick Valencia Salazar, a co-founder of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, in 2012, gang members hijacked about two dozen vehicles, setting them on fire on highways across the state of Jalisco. Three people died in the violence.
Known as El 85, Mr. Valencia Salazar was at the time one of two leaders of the powerful Jalisco gang, along with Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as El Mencho, the brutal drug lord who was killed in a Mexican Army raid in Jalisco this past February — again setting off violence across the state.
But on Tuesday, when Mr. Valencia Salazar pleaded guilty to conspiring to traffic drugs in a Washington federal court as part of the cartel’s former leadership, gang reactions, if any, were muted.
Last year, the United States designated the Jalisco gang a foreign terrorist organization. And Mr. Valencia Salazar’s conviction comes after an acceleration of extraditions of Mexican drug lords to the United States since 2025 under pressure from the Trump administration. Many of these gang leaders have made plea agreements with U.S. authorities, reflecting heightened threats to cartel power in Mexico.
Last August, Ismael Zambada García, a co-founder of the influential Sinaloa cartel, pleaded guilty to drug trafficking conspiracy charges in a court in Brooklyn in what Pam Bondi, who was the United States attorney general at the time, called a “landmark victory” for the Justice Department.
And last December, Joaquín Guzmán López, who had taken over the Sinaloa cartel after his father, Joaquín Guzmán Loera (El Chapo) was sentenced to life in prison in New York, made a deal with American authorities. He was following the lead of his brother, Ovidio Guzmán López, who took a plea in July.
Mr. Valencia Salazar was extradited to the United States along with more than two dozen other Mexican gang members last year. This week he admitted to conspiring to distribute cocaine in the United States, including sending thousands of pounds of the drug every month into the country starting around 2010 when Jalisco New Generation Cartel was formed.
Mr. Valencia Salazar’s responsibilities in the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, known by its Spanish acronym, C.J.N.G. included recruiting gang members and gathering intelligence about rival cartels — part of an attempt to gain control of drug trafficking operations in parts of Mexico and on routes to the United States, he admitted in the statement.
Hundreds of gang members reported to him directly, doing his bidding as he routinely ordered up violence, according to a statement of facts Mr. Valencia Salazar signed in March.
Mr. Valencia Salazar quickly rose through the ranks of organized crime, and by the early 2010s was a key figure in the Mexican drug trade. With Los Matazetas, a predecessor to the C.J.N.G., he, alongside El Mencho, drew attention for a highly violent campaign against another powerful criminal organization, Los Zetas.
The rise of C.J.N.G. coincided with a spike in murders in Jalisco linked to organized crime.
“Erick Valencia Salazar helped build C.J.N.G. into a ruthless organization that uses violence as a business model — murdering for control in Mexico while flooding the United States with poison,” said the Drug Enforcement Administration chief, Terrance Cole, in a statement about the conviction. He added that the cartel does “not just traffic deadly drugs — including fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine — they spread violence, fear, and instability on both sides of the border.”
Mr. Cole lauded Mr. Valencia Salazar’s plea agreement as another step in holding the cartel’s leadership accountable. But Mr. Valencia Salazar split with C.J.N.G. after he was released from a Mexican prison in 2017, and his path highlights the difficulty of stamping out gang activity.
Mr. Valencia Salazar’s 2017 release was attributed to due process violations. But it raised suspicions in Mexico that the judge had been pressured or influenced by the cartel. That year, the U.S. State Department offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest.
Yet Mr. Valencia Salazar, who was known to keep a relatively low profile, eluded the authorities until 2022 as he led another gang, the Nueva Plaza Cartel, and went to war with “El Mencho,” his former partner.
Mr. Valencia Salazar is set to be sentenced in July and faces a minimum punishment of 10 years and up to life in prison. His attorney declined to comment.
Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s criminal division said Mr. Valencia Salazar had helped to turn C.J.N.G. into “one of the most violent drug trafficking organizations in Mexico, which shipped tons of cocaine into the United States,” accusing him of inflicting “immeasurable damage” domestically and “furthering the rampant violence in Mexico, at the expense of people’s lives and the safety of communities.”
Paulina Villegas contributed reporting.
Ephrat Livni is a Times reporter covering breaking news around the world. She is based in Washington.
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