The footprint of Los Mayos and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel on Mexico’s concert business

The music industry has once again been forced to dance to a tune set by drug trafficking. Ismael Zambada Sicairos, the subject of several narcocorridos (a subgenre of corrido, a type of Mexican ballad, that glorifies or narrates the lives of drug traffickers and organized crime), is now accused of being the head of a sophisticated criminal network that, through organizing concerts in Baja California and other front-business activities, allegedly served to launder money generated illicitly across the border by Los Mayos, the Sinaloa Cartel faction he has led for two years.

Between Mayito Flaco — as the son of jailed drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada is known — and the lucrative entertainment business stands entrepreneur Marco Antonio Moreno Gómez Santelices and one of his companies, sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for allegedly laundering cartel money: the concert promoter In House Espectáculos, legally registered as Conciertos y Espectáculos Inhouse.

In recent years, In House Espectáculos has promoted concerts in Tijuana, Mexicali, and Ensenada. Santelices’s lineups have included some of the Latin music industry’s best-known names: Ricky Martin, Ana Torroja, Roberto Carlos, Alejandra Guzmán, Belinda, Cristian Castro, Los Ángeles Azules, Emmanuel, Mijares, Lupita D’Alessio, Yuri, OV7, Matute, Camila, and Molotov. According to advertising circulated on social media, the best seats sold for as much as 3,500 pesos (around $190).

It is no coincidence that Los Mayos’ money ended up mixed with large-scale music events. Los Cuinis, the financial arm of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), did the same earlier through rodeo arenas they organized in central and northern Mexico. The concert industry moves enormous sums, especially after ticket prices rose following the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2025 alone it generated an economic impact of 68.990 billion pesos, making Mexico the world’s third-largest live music market after the United States and the United Kingdom, according to a study by Ocesa.

In December 2025, In House Espectáculos’ Instagram and Facebook accounts stopped posting and the company website went offline. The last concert it promoted was by Puerto Rican singer Marc Anthony, who performed in a field in the Valle de Guadalupe, a wine-growing and gourmet-restaurant region that has become a popular hotspot for the photos that flood social networks. The show had been rescheduled after its initial date was canceled a month earlier.

Events and contracts at the border

Concerts by artists and groups contracted by In House Espectáculos have been used, according to the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), to launder proceeds that Mayito Flaco obtained from drug sales.

Sicairos, who was born in California, inherited in the summer of 2024 an organization whose tentacles reach into different parts of the United States and several other countries. He took leadership after his father was kidnapped on a ranch in Culiacán and forced onto a jet that flew him to New Mexico, according to the version of events the Sinaloa Cartel co-founder laid out in a letter after his arrest. In July, El Mayo was sentenced to life in prison. Since his detention the cartel’s most powerful clans, the Zambadas and the Guzmáns, have been locked in a bloody war that shows no sign of ending.

The U.S. Treasury says the owner of In House Espectáculos collaborated with his partner Carlos Villela Gómez Santelices under the orders of Jesús González Lomelí, whom OFAC identifies as “a high-level money launderer for the Sinaloa Cartel” and an associate of one of Mayito Flaco’s main lieutenants in Baja California, René Arzate García, alias “La Rana.” According to the agency, Santelices and his ally have “a network of security, real estate and entertainment companies that also launder money.”

The U.S. government also alleges that Carlos Alberto Torres Torres, the ex-husband of Baja California Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila, was a “political operator” for Los Mayos in the region. Two companies controlled by the Santelices family had secured deals with the state government: Inteliproof Efficient held contracts to supply uniforms and tactical equipment for the Baja California Attorney General’s police department; and the agency Festivales Artistas Mobiliario y Asesoría, also known as Promociones CHF de Baja California, won several contracts from the state tourism secretariat for promotional work.

Santelices and other people recently sanctioned by OFAC are not facing criminal charges at this time. OFAC prohibits business with persons and entities it has designated for alleged links to organized crime.

Concerts and the CJNG

The scheme the Jalisco New Generation Cartel had set up to launder money through concerts at the Feria de San Marcos, one of Mexico’s most important fairs, began to unravel in April 2018 when OFAC sanctioned promoter Jesús Pérez Alvear, alias “Chucho Pérez,” and his company Gallística Diamante, also known as Ticket Premier. The move was made public a few days before the rodeo arena shows began, but the fair’s organizing board and Pérez Alvear decided the events should go ahead.

Gallística Diamante’s lineup for that San Marcos fair in Aguascalientes included singers Alejandro Fernández, Marco Antonio Solís, Emmanuel, Mijares, and Gerardo Ortiz, whose corridos had turned him into the biggest star on the Los Angeles–based DEL Records label. Ortiz’s concert marked a turning point for everyone involved.

Pérez Alvear was close to the Los Cuinis clan, then led by Abigael González Valencia, the brother-in-law of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, “El Mencho,” founder of the CJNG. According to OFAC, that relationship allowed him to bring shows to the San Marcos and San Isidro Metepec fairs in the State of Mexico. “Chucho Pérez uses violence to obtain concessions to operate these concerts,” the agency said in its statement. “Chucho Pérez launders drug proceeds belonging to CJNG and Los Cuinis by comingling them with legitimate revenues generated from the sale of tickets, refreshments, parking, and other items,” it added.

For the 2017 edition of the Feria de San Marcos, Gallística Diamante had contracted a long list of artists and bands, including Banda MS, Ana Gabriel, Alejandro Fernández, Julión Álvarez, Banda El Recodo, Gloria Trevi, La Arrolladora, Los Tigres del Norte, and Carlos Rivera. Gerardo Ortiz was also on the bill.

Nothing stopped Ortiz from performing his love ballads and narco-glorifying corridos on the night of April 27, 2018. Days earlier, FBI agents stopped him at an airport in Phoenix, Arizona, and warned him that if he sang at that rodeo arena he would violate the Kingpin Act, tied to OFAC sanctions.

Back in California, Ortiz met with the owner of DEL Records, Ángel del Villar, and told him he “didn’t want to go to the concert; he was, well, scared.” But his manager convinced him, assuring him “not to worry because everyone had received the same letter (from OFAC), even Alejandro Fernández,” Ortiz testified at the trial of Del Villar, held in a federal court in Los Angeles in March 2025. The music producer was accused of doing business with a designated narcotrafficker, Pérez Alvear.

During the trial, federal prosecutors presented a letter from the Aguascalientes city government that attempted to conceal that Chucho Pérez was behind the hiring of Ortiz. The city even facilitated a private jet from Los Angeles, carrying the singer, to land at a local airport that had been closed. The artist had provided a thousand excuses to avoid taking a commercial flight to Mexico, but he was ultimately put almost at gunpoint onto a jet they rented at the last minute for nearly $50,000. At all costs, he had to appear in Aguascalientes.

“I was afraid to go. I missed the flight, it was late. So the only way I could get there was by private plane,” Ortiz told the court.

After his Aguascalientes performance, Ortiz did another 18 concerts for which he was paid about $1.5 million. He sang in Pénjamo, Culiacán, Tlaxcala, Pachuca, Mexicali, Hermosillo, Morelia, Celaya, Uriangato, Arcelia, Chilpancingo and other cities. As explained in the Los Angeles trial, a private concert in Ciudad Guzmán, Jalisco, was agreed for $130,000: Ortiz received $98,000; Del Villar kept $24,000 as commission; and Pérez Alvear received $6,500, equivalent to 5%.

Ángel del Villar rose to the top of the music industry in part thanks to a song Peso Pluma — an artist that investigative reporting has linked to the Sinaloa Cartel — recorded with Eslabón Armado, a group signed to DEL Records. In 2023, when the track Ella baila sola became an international hit, DEL Entertainment, Del Villar’s concert-promotion agency, reported revenues of $9.4 million, according to court documents.

“I’d rather be in prison than dead”

The Del Villar trial also revealed that to cover the payments destined for Pérez Alvear, concert money was routed through another promoter, Miguel Ángel Ceja Rodríguez, owner of Gallística del Noreste, a company that between 2011 and 2015 held the concession to bring artists to the Feria de San Marcos.

That company hired Mexican singer Luis Miguel to perform two concerts, on April 17 and 18, 2015, at the San Marcos fair. Tickets sold for as much as 3,500 pesos.

Gallística del Noreste’s first owner — Alejandro Ceja Rodríguez — and Chucho Pérez met similar ends. Ceja Rodríguez was shot dead in 2015 while eating at a Monterrey restaurant. Pérez Alvear was shot dead in a Mexico City restaurant in December 2024 as he prepared to testify at the trial against Del Villar. By then he had pleaded guilty to laundering money for Los Cuinis and had agreed to cooperate with the U.S. government. Mexico City police said Chucho Pérez arrived at the establishment two hours before his murder and the attack was considered targeted. He had made a reservation for more people. Two men carried out the assault and escaped.

Gerardo Ortiz entered a guilty plea on February 22, 2024. His cooperation with the FBI allowed him to avoid prison: he was sentenced to 36 months of probation in November 2025. On the day of sentencing, a letter from his wife revealed the couple’s fear that the singer had become a target of the drug cartels in Mexico. “My husband and I have lived in constant fear,” she wrote.

Ángel del Villar and his agency, DEL Entertainment, were found guilty on more than 10 counts related to violations of the Kingpin Act. Del Villar was sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to pay a $2 million fine. He was to begin serving his sentence in December 2025, but a judge ordered him to remain free on bail while his appeal is resolved.

On the day of his sentencing, outside the courthouse, the music producer told reporters, “I’d much rather be behind bars than be a government informant.” But during his trial, in the court hallways, he was heard saying something far more revealing: “I’d rather be in prison than dead.”

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