Cartel kingpin 'El Chelelo' sentenced to 31 years in prison for massive drug trafficking operation

One of the most violent leaders of the Los Zetas cartel will spend the next three decades in an American prison after being brought down by US law enforcement.

Eleazar Medina-Rojas, 53, known as “El Chelelo,” was sentenced to more than 31 years in federal prison and ordered to forfeit $26.5 million for his role in smuggling staggering quantities of cocaine and marijuana into the United States.

According to the Justice Department, Medina-Rojas was a cartel warlord who climbed the ranks of Los Zetas through bloodshed, intimidation, and murder. As a plaza boss, he controlled key drug corridors into South Texas, including Brownsville, Laredo, and McAllen, and used violence to keep rivals and law enforcement at bay.

“For four years, Medina-Rojas had a tight grip on routes where he was able to smuggle more than 3,000 tons of drugs into our Southern Texas border,” said DEA Houston Special Agent in Charge Jonathan C. Pullen. “He eliminated anyone who stood in the way of his profit.”

Court records show that Medina-Rojas personally directed drug shipments and cartel attacks while commanding dozens of armed fighters. He was directly responsible for importing more than 450 kilograms of cocaine and 90,000 kilograms of marijuana into U.S. communities. His power came not just from drugs but from sheer brutality, violence, threats, and military-style weapons were his currency.

Los Zetas, made up of former Mexican soldiers, once served as the muscle for the Gulf Cartel before spinning off into their own cartel empire. Operating under the name “The Company,” they turned border towns into war zones and carved out smuggling routes through terror. But Medina-Rojas’s grip on the border didn’t last. DEA agents in Houston spent years dismantling his networks until he was finally captured in Mexico. Thanks to coordination between US and Mexican authorities, he was extradited in July 2023 and brought to face justice in an American courtroom.

“This sentence is a powerful reminder that the Justice Department will aggressively pursue and bring to justice violent cartel members,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti.

Medina-Rojas’s conviction is part of Operation Take Back America; a Justice Department crackdown aimed at dismantling cartels and other transnational criminal groups that flood US communities with drugs and violence. By combining resources from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) and Project Safe Neighborhoods, the initiative seeks nothing less than the elimination of cartel influence on American soil.