‘The Jaguar’ gets 40 years in prison for racketeering, conspiracy to commit murder

Sinaloa cartel leader trafficked drugs into U..S., ordered killings in Mexico

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A former Sinaloa cartel leader will spend the next 40 years in prison after pleading guilty to three of 14 counts in a federal indictment.

U.S. District Judge Frank Montalvo last week ordered Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo – also known as “The Jaguar” and “14” – to serve 480 months in a federal correctional institution, pay a $100,000 fine and spend five years under supervised release. Torres is to serve his term in an Arizona facility.

Torres late last month pleaded guilty to counts of conspiracy to kill in another country, aiding and abetting a kidnapping and conspiracy to conduct an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity. The U.S. Attorney’s Office motioned to drop the remaining 11 counts of the indictment.

Torres supervised the Sinaloa cartel’s operation in Juarez, a task that entailed moving drugs from Mexico to the United States and getting rid of competitors, according to witnesses. He had arrived in Juarez and quickly developed a reputation as one of Sinaloa cartel drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s top enforcers.

He was part of a group of Sinaloa cartel operatives being tried in El Paso for violent organized criminal activities in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

“Defendants, along with other members and associates of the (Sinaloa cartel), coordinated with transportation cells to arrange for large quantities of cocaine and marijuana to be imported into the U.S. through various routes including the international bridges between Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas, and the miles of open desert stretching into the Juarez Valley,” states the original indictment.

Torres and other defendants “committed, attempted and threatened to commit acts of violence, including kidnaping, torture and murder to protect and expand the enterprise’s criminal operations,” according to the indictment.

The document also charged Torres with ordering the murder of a groom, his brother and uncle during the man’s wedding ceremony.

Torres was charted with supplying money and weapons to the Gente Nueva cell of the Sinaloa cartel in its bloody war against the Juarez cartel, the indictment states. That war led to several hundred killings and the flight of many Mexican residents to the United States during that period of time.