FBI adds drug cartel leader accused of ordering Southlake murder to most wanted list
The FBI has added a Mexican drug cartel leader who ordered a 2013 killing in Southlake to its “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list, authorities announced at a news conference in Southlake on Tuesday afternoon.
A reward of up to $1 million is being offered for information that leads to the capture of Jose Rodolfo Villarreal-Hernandez, 42, also known as El Gato. He’s charged in an indictment with conspiracy to commit murder for hire and interstate stalking.
Five people have been arrested in the case, but the assassins remained on the run on Tuesday.
Federal officials believe Villarreal-Hernandez is hiding in Mexico..
Assistant Director of the FBI’s criminal investigative division Calvin A. Shivers noted on Tuesday that authorities in North Texas recently captured a man on the “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list
Yaser Said, accused in the 2008 killing of his daughters in Irving, was captured in August in Justin.
“We will bring to justice those individuals who commit violent acts and threaten the safety of our citizens and our community,” Shivers said.
Officials say between March 2011 and May 2013, three men traveled from Mexico to Southlake and elsewhere, tracking Juan Jesus Guerrero Chapa, the personal lawyer for the leader of the Gulf cartel and a government informant.
Records show the men were acting on orders from Villarreal-Hernandez, who wanted Chapa killed as revenge for his father’s murder.
After the men located Chapa, Villarreal-Hernandez sent two assassins — identified only as “Clorox” and “Captain” — from Mexico to Southlake to kill him, authorities said.
Chapa was fatally shot on the evening of May 22, 2013, after he and his wife were ambushed as they sat in their Range Rover at Southlake Town Square.
After pulling up behind Chapa’s vehicle in a Toyota Sequoia, one of the assassins got out and walked up to the Range Rover, firing several times with a 9mm pistol through the window at Chapa.
Chapa died at the scene. His wife was not injured.
“The shooter and his accomplices showed no regard for the victim, his wife or the innocent bystanders who witnessed the murder,” said Matthew J. DeSarno, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Dallas field office, in the news conference.
The three men who tracked Chapa, Jose Luis Cepeda-Cortes, of Mexico; his cousin Jesus “Chuy” Gerardo Ledezma-Cepeda; and Ledezma-Cepeda’s son, Jesus Gerardo Ledezma-Campano, have been sentenced in the case.
A drug dealer, Luis Lauro Ramirez Bautista, suspected of helping finance the search for Chapa was apprehended in June 2017 by Mexican federal officers, according to reporting by the Dallas Morning News. He died in custody, federal authorities said Tuesday.
Ramon Villarreal, also accused of being linked to the 2013 Southlake killing, was arrested in 2018 without incident in Monterrey in northern Mexico, according to a news release from the Procuraduria General De La Republica (PGR), the Mexican federal law enforcement agency.
Villarreal-Hernandez has been a high-ranking member of the Beltran-Leyva Organization (BLO) Drug Cartel, according to a U.S. Department of Justice wanted poster. He oversees an organization responsible for importing cocaine and marijuana into the United States, as well as committing violent acts in Mexico and the U.S. to maintain his organization’s power and status, the Justice Department says.
Anyone with information on Villarreal-Hernandez should call the FBI at 1-800-225-5324.
This report contains information from Star-Telegram archives.
This story was originally published October 13, 2020 at 1:10 PM.
