Mexican cartel leader who faked his own death has been arrested in California, Justice Department says
CNN
A high-ranking member of a Mexican drug cartel who allegedly faked his own death and has been living in California under a fake name is now facing federal charges, the US Justice Department announced Thursday.
A high-ranking member of a Mexican drug cartel who allegedly faked his own death and has been living in California under a fake name is now facing federal charges, the US Justice Department announced Thursday. Cristian Fernando Gutierrez-Ochoa, a member of the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación and the son-in-law of the cartel’s leader El Mencho, was on the run from Mexican authorities when he fled to the United States, assumed a fake identity and had moved into a luxury Riverside apartment when he was arrested earlier this month, according to prosecutors. The 37-year-old Gutierrez-Ochoa is charged with international drug trafficking and money laundering. “The Jalisco Cartel — one of the world’s most violent and prolific drug trafficking organizations — is weaker today because of the tenacious efforts of law enforcement to track down and arrest a cartel leader who allegedly faked his own death and assumed a false identity to evade justice and live a life of luxury in California,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement Thursday. Prosecutors say that before he went into hiding, Gutierrez-Ochoa personally orchestrated the transportation and distribution of 40,000 kilograms of methamphetamine and 2,000 kilograms of cocaine from Mexico to the United States. He also allegedly kidnapped two members of the Mexican Navy as part of an attempt to release his mother-in-law, El Mencho’s wife, after her arrest by Mexican authorities. El Mencho then allegedly helped Gutierrez-Ochoa fake his death to evade Mexican law enforcement by telling his associates that he had killed Gutierrez-Ochoa for lying. The scheme allowed Gutierrez-Ochoa to run to California and be with El Mencho’s daughter.
A California woman told police that Trump Cabinet pick Pete Hegseth physically blocked her from leaving a hotel room, took her phone, and then sexually assaulted her even though she “remembered saying ‘no’ a lot,” a police report obtained by CNN shows.
For more than a decade, Chinese students have flocked to the United States, drawn by the prestige of an overseas education and the glamor of the American Dream. But that’s changing now – and recent statistics suggest the allure may be wearing off.
After rarely being seen in public in the two weeks since he delivered a brief, 46-second victory speech on election night, JD Vance reemerged this week to play one of the most important roles he will be expected to fill as Donald Trump’s No. 2: His point person on Capitol Hill.
A Florida man was arrested Wednesday and charged in a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange this week, according to the FBI.
The Senate on Wednesday voted down an effort led by Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders to block a series of planned US weapons sales to Israel.
Republicans on the House Ethics Committee fell in line behind GOP leaders and voted not to release the results of their investigation into Donald Trump’s attorney general pick, Matt Gaetz, despite growing calls from the Senate GOP to make the findings public ahead of his confirmation hearing.
Senate Democrats have confirmed some of President Joe Biden’s picks for the federal bench this week in the face of President-elect Donald Trump’s calls for a total GOP blockade of judicial nominations – in part because several Republicans involved with the Trump transition process have been missing votes.
A former University of Virginia student pleaded guilty Wednesday to fatally shooting three football players and wounding two other students on the Charlottesville campus in 2022.
Donald Trump is considering a right-wing media personality and people who have served on his US Secret Service detail to run the agency that has been plagued by its failure to preempt two alleged assassination attempts on Trump this summer, sources familiar with the president-elect’s thinking tell CNN.
The United States has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called for an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, on the grounds it would not have secured the release of hostages.
A Democratic election official in Pennsylvania offered an impassioned apology Wednesday for claiming “precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country” to justify counting about 600 faulty ballots in defiance of state Supreme Court rulings.