El Paso Woman Pleads Guilty to Arming Jalisco Cartel, Faces Life in Prison

A 40-year-old Mexican national known as “Chayo” admitted in federal court on Thursday that she supplied weapons and drugs to Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, becoming a central figure in what officials describe as the first case of its kind against a CJNG affiliate. Maria Del Rosario Navarro-Sanchez pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, conspiracy to engage in firearms trafficking, conspiracy to transport illegal aliens, and conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.

The plea, announced by DEA El Paso, closes out a case that began when Navarro-Sanchez was first indicted in the Western District of Texas in May 2025. According to the Department of Justice, court documents unsealed Thursday show Navarro-Sanchez hired human smugglers to bring migrants into El Paso specifically to staff stash houses used for warehousing drugs and weapons.

Those documents also detail a covert sting from August 2023, in which Navarro-Sanchez negotiated to buy 20 AK-47-style rifles and two .50-caliber rifles from undercover agents, intending to deliver the arsenal to CJNG. Under the terms of her guilty plea, she now faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years in federal prison, with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

A First-of-Its-Kind Terrorism Case

When federal prosecutors first indicted Navarro-Sanchez in May 2025, officials called it the first indictment in U.S. history to charge a Mexican national with providing material support to a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization for backing CJNG, the Justice Department noted at the time. That prosecution only became possible after the U.S. Department of State designated CJNG and seven other Latin American criminal organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists under Executive Order 14157 in February 2025, according to a client alert from law firm WilmerHale.

That designation allowed prosecutors to apply 18 U.S.C. § 2339B — the federal material support statute — to a cartel supply case that might once have been charged only as drug and firearms trafficking. DEA El Paso Special Agent in Charge Robert “Eric” Castaneda said the shift changes the legal stakes for anyone tied to the cartel's operations. “Charges now carry more weight under CJNG's designation as a foreign terrorist organization,” Castaneda said. “Anyone seeking profit from the deaths of Americans, no matter their level of involvement, will be brought to justice.”

From Mexican Arrest to Texas Courtroom

Navarro-Sanchez's path to a federal courtroom in Texas began with her arrest in Mexico in May 2025. She was handed over to U.S. federal authorities in January 2026 as part of a historic transfer of 37 fugitives between Mexico and the United States targeting cartel leadership and human smuggling networks, a case Hoodline covered when it detailed the transfer of alleged CJNG kingpin “Maximo” around the same time.

A co-defendant, Gustavo Castro-Medina, also pleaded guilty Thursday. He admitted to straw purchasing firearms and to transporting 36.36 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine wrapped in transmission fluid and hidden under a vehicle trap door when Border Patrol stopped him in Sierra Blanca, Texas, back in November 2020, per the Justice Department's announcement.

Federal Pressure Mounts on Cartel Networks

The guilty pleas land amid a broader federal push against CJNG following the February 2026 death of cartel founder Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes in a Mexican military operation. In August, the State Department and DEA raised bounties on CJNG leadership, including a $25 million reward for the cartel's new boss, Juan Carlos Valencia González — part of a bounty package Hoodline previously reported on when it covered the cartel's leadership shakeup.

Federal prosecutors have also begun applying the material support statute beyond border arms suppliers. A Honduras-based Chinese national, Wenshen Xu, pleaded guilty in June to material support of CJNG and money laundering involving $22 million in illicit drug proceeds, the DOJ said, illustrating how the same legal tool is now reaching financial facilitators far from the border. Elsewhere, senior CJNG figures have also entered guilty pleas after extradition, including a case Hoodline reported involving El Mencho's brother.

Between January 2025 and January 2026, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas prosecuted more than 12,000 border- and immigration-related criminal cases as part of Joint Task Force Alpha and Homeland Security Task Force operations targeting cartels, underscoring the scale of federal enforcement feeding cases like this one. It remains unclear when Navarro-Sanchez will be formally sentenced, and whether prosecutors will secure similar material support convictions against other cartel facilitators moving through federal courts elsewhere in the country.