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When a man named Luis Miguel Martinez moved into a $1.2 million home in an upscale Riverside neighborhood in 2023, he brought standard luxuries with him.
There were luxury cars parked outside, including a BMW and another car with Mexican license plates.
But after Mr. Martinez was arrested by federal authorities this week, neighbors learned that Mr. Martinez was allegedly using a false name. Investigators say his real name is Cristian Fernando Gutierrez Ochoa, and he is the son-in-law of a Mexican drug lord known as El Mencho.
Gutiérrez Ochoa, a member of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), went missing in Mexico in December 2023 and was reportedly murdered for lying to his wife’s father, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes.
Federal authorities on Tuesday arrested a man allegedly killed in Riverside and charged Gutierrez-Ochoa with international drug trafficking and money laundering.
Court records do not indicate whether he has hired an attorney or filed a response to the charges.
“The Jalisco Cartel, one of the most violent and prolific drug-trafficking organizations in the world, is under a law to track down and arrest cartel leaders who are accused of faking their own deaths and assuming false identities to evade justice. We are weakened today because of the persistent efforts of the enforcement agencies,’ and live a luxurious life in California,” said Deputy Atty. General Lisa Monaco said in a statement.
Gutierrez Ochoa, 37, who reportedly began working for CJNG around 2014 and later married El Mencho’s youngest daughter, is identified in court records as a U.S. national who runs a coffee shop in Riverside. .
According to court documents, Gutierrez-Ochoa coordinated the shipment of about 40 tons of methamphetamine and about 2,000 kilograms of cocaine in Mexico, all destined for the United States.
He also used violence to facilitate drug trafficking and money laundering activities, prosecutors charged.
Gutierrez-Ochoa allegedly kidnapped two members of the Mexican Navy around November 2021 in order to secure the release of his mother-in-law, the wife of El Mencho, who was arrested by Mexican authorities.
Based on an arrest warrant related to that kidnapping, the Mexican government issued an Interpol Red Notice calling for Gutierrez-Ochoa’s detention in September 2022.
Confidential DEA sources then reported that Gutierrez-Ochoa was killed by his stepfather and disappeared. Authorities believe El Mencho helped Gutierrez-Ochoa by spreading rumors of a plan to fake his death.
The Justice Department previously returned the indictment against El Mencho in April 2022, charging him with leading an ongoing criminal enterprise to manufacture and distribute fentanyl for import into the United States, according to the Justice Department. . There is a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to his arrest. The cartel leader remains a fugitive.
The same year that Gutierrez-Ochoa disappeared, a company called Pación Azul, a tequila manufacturer suspected of laundering cartel money, paid $1.2 million in cash to buy a luxury home in an upscale Riverside neighborhood. Gutierrez Ochoa’s affidavit revealed that he paid Kyle Mori of the DEA Los Angeles Office.
Mori said he interviewed the escrow agent, real estate agent and the home’s seller, who described the circumstances of the purchase as “suspicious.” The home’s previous owner said he believed the buyers were “drug dealers” from Mexico.
In October 2024, the Los Angeles Drug Enforcement Agency learned of an Interpol notice requesting Gutierrez-Ochoa’s detention. The Department of Homeland Security compared known photos of Gutierrez-Ochoa and found they matched Martinez’s photo, according to the affidavit.
The department used facial recognition software to discover that Gutierrez-Ochoa and Martinez were the same person, Mori said.
When DEA agents attempted to conduct surveillance on Gutierrez-Ochoa, Mori said he began using anti-surveillance techniques and then began tailing the agents. Authorities arrested him on November 19th.
If convicted as per the indictment, Gutierrez-Ochoa could face a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life in prison for conspiracy to distribute drugs.
Even before Gutierrez-Ochoa, Mexican champions had a long history of faking their deaths to avoid arrest, and El Mencho himself was rumored to have been murdered several times. In 2020, amid reports that the CJNG boss was dead or suffering from chronic kidney disease, Mexico’s president and the Drug Enforcement Agency publicly stated that he was still alive and at large.
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