WASHINGTON (AP) — A California man who co-founded one of Mexico's most powerful and violent drug cartels pleaded guilty on Tuesday in the U.S. to a federal narcotics conspiracy charge.
Erick Valencia Salazar formed the Jalisco New Generation Cartel with Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the drug lord known as “El Mencho" who was killed by the Mexican army in February.
Valencia Salazar, 49, of Santa Clara, California, faces a mandatory-minimum prison sentence of 10 years and a maximum of life in prison after pleading guilty in Washington, D.C., to one count of conspiring to distribute cocaine for U.S. importation. Chief Judge James Boasberg is scheduled to sentence him on July 31.
Valencia Salazar was a member of the Milenio Cartel before he and Oseguera Cervantes founded the Jalisco cartel, which is known by its Spanish-language acronym CJNG. Hundreds of CJNG members reported to Valencia Salazar, whose duties included recruitment and obtaining information about cartel rivals, prosecutors said.
Valencia Salazar, also known as “El 85,” formed his own cartel, La Nueva Plaza, after parting ways with "El Mencho," who led the CJNG until his death.
A. Tysen Duva, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said the CJNG has inflicted “immeasurable damage” on the U.S.
“Valencia Salazar was also responsible for furthering the rampant violence in Mexico, at the expense of people’s lives and the safety of communities, that helped destabilize the region and allow crime to flourish,” Duva said in a statement.
A grand jury indicted Valencia Salazar on the conspiracy charge in 2018. In February 2025, Mexican authorities sent him to the U.S. as part of an initial group of 29 drug lords.
Last year, President Donald Trump's administration designated the CJNG and other cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
Valencia Salazar was arrested twice in Mexico. The first time was in 2012, when he was detained by the military in the municipality of Zapopan, near Guadalajara, the capital of the state of Jalisco.
Five years later, he was released from prison by order of a judge who cited alleged procedural flaws. In 2022, the Army recaptured him in the town of Tapalpa, the same place where “El Mencho” was captured and killed.
The U.S. State Department had offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to Valencia Salazar's arrest or conviction.
Associated Press writer Fabiola Sanchez in Mexico City contributed to this report.
FILE - Soldiers stand guard over Erick Valencia Salazar, alias "El 85,", in Mexico City, March 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini, File)
LONDON (AP) — The rapper formerly known as Kanye West was barred Tuesday from entering the U.K., where he was scheduled to headline the Wireless Festival in July, after a backlash over Ye's history of antisemitic remarks.
Festival organizers canceled the three-day outdoor event as a result of the travel ban and said those who had bought tickets would get refunds.
Ye applied for an electronic travel authorization to visit the U.K., but it was blocked by the government on the grounds that his presence in the country would not be “conducive to the public good.”
“Kanye West should never have been invited to headline Wireless,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement posted on social media. “This government stands firmly with the Jewish community, and we will not stop in our fight to confront and defeat the poison of antisemitism. We will always take the action necessary to protect the public and uphold our values.”
The rapper, who changed his name in 2021, had been expected to play his first U.K. dates for more than a decade in front of around 150,000 revelers over three nights July 10-12 at the Wireless Festival, in London’s Finsbury Park. Other acts for the festival had not yet been announced.
The event's organizers had been under mounting pressure from sponsors and politicians to cancel the gigs by the rapper, who has drawn widespread condemnation for making antisemitic remarks and voicing admiration for Adolf Hitler.
Last year, Ye released a song called “Heil Hitler” and advertised a swastika T-shirt for sale on his website. Officials in Australia canceled the musician's visa in July after the release of the single.
The 48-year-old apologized in January with a letter, published as a full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. He said his bipolar disorder led him to fall into “a four-month long, manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior that destroyed my life.”
Wireless sponsors Pepsi, Rockstar Energy and Diageo pulled out of the festival since Ye was announced as the headliner.
In a statement issued Tuesday before his travel authorization was revoked, Ye said he “would be grateful for the opportunity to meet with members of the Jewish community in the U.K. in person, to listen.
“I know words aren’t enough — I’ll have to show change through my actions,” he said. “If you’re open, I’m here.”
Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, had said the group would be willing to meet with the musician if he pulled out of the festival.
“The Jewish community will want to see a genuine remorse and change before believing that the appropriate place to test this sincerity is on the main stage at the Wireless Festival,” Rosenberg said.
Organizer Festival Republic had stood by Ye. In a statement issued Monday, managing director Melvin Benn urged people to offer the performer “forgiveness and hope.”
“We are not giving him a platform to extol opinion of whatever nature, only to perform the songs that are currently played on the radio stations in our country and the streaming platforms in our country and listened to and enjoyed by millions,” the statement said.
Announcing the cancellation, Festival Republic said that “multiple stakeholders were consulted in advance of booking Ye and no concerns were highlighted at the time.
“Antisemitism in all its forms is abhorrent, and we recognize the real and personal impact these issues have had,” it said in a statement. “As Ye said today, he acknowledges that words alone are not enough, and in spite of this still hopes to be given the opportunity to begin a conversation with the Jewish community in the U.K.”
The Community Security Trust, which works to protect British Jews, said the government had made the right decision.
“Anti-Jewish hatred should have no place in society and cultural leaders have a role to play in ensuring that is the case,” it said in a statement.
“People who show genuine and meaningful remorse for previous antisemitic behavior will always receive a sympathetic hearing from the Jewish community, but that process must come before this kind of public rehabilitation.”
A representative for Ye didn’t reply to a request for comment.
FILE - Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Feb. 9, 2020. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - Kanye West appears at the 67th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Feb. 2, 2025. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - Kanye West, who changed his name to Ye in 2021, performs at the Coachella Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., on April 20, 2019. . (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)
