DALLAS, Texas — Among the 29 cartel leaders expelled from Mexico and transferred to U.S. custody was Jose Rodolfo Villarreal Hernandez, a defendant in the Northern District of Texas, according to Acting U.S. Attorney Chad Meacham. Villarreal Hernandez, a high-ranking member of the Beltran-Leyva Organization (BLO) Drug Cartel, faces charges related to the 2013 murder of a Southlake, Texas lawyer.
Villarreal Hernandez, a Mexican national, was charged in June 2018 with interstate stalking and conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire. He was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List in October 2020 and was arrested in January 2023 by Mexican authorities in Atizapán de Zaragoza, Mexico. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced his expulsion, pledging to prosecute cartel bosses “to the fullest extent of the law,” in honor of law enforcement agents who have fought against violent cartels.
According to evidence presented at the trial of his coconspirators, Villarreal Hernandez allegedly orchestrated a multi-year effort to locate and assassinate the attorney, who had ties to a rival cartel. The victim was shot on May 22, 2013, while in his vehicle outside a Southlake shopping center. Three men, acting on Villarreal Hernandez’s orders, were convicted and sentenced in 2016 for their roles in the crime…