Justice Department moves to seize the Hemet ranch of CJNG's new boss

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a civil forfeiture case against a ranch in Hemet, California, that it links to Juan Carlos Valencia González, the man Washington now names as leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. El País reported the filing from Hemet on 29 August. The suit went to a federal court in the District of Columbia at the end of July. The Money Laundering, Narcotics, and Forfeiture Section of the Criminal Division is handling it.

Valencia González, also called El 03, El Pelón and Tricky Tres, bought the land in 2011 for $250,000 when he was 26. He registered it as Juan Carlos González, using his mother's surname, Rosalinda González Valencia, and leaving off both his biological father and his stepfather, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as El Mencho. The plot covers 19,468 square metres, about three football pitches. Local valuation now sits near $695,000 to $700,000. Neighbours in Hemet, El País wrote, did not know the owner as a trafficker.

He was born on 12 September 1984 in Santa Ana, California, which makes him a U.S. citizen. The National Counterterrorism Center named him as El Mencho's successor after Mexican forces killed the older man in a Jalisco operation in February 2026. The Wall Street Journal reported the succession on 18 March. El País confirmed the same reading on 6 April. The State Department reward for information leading to his arrest is $25 million. He remains a fugitive.

What forfeiture can take, and what it cannot

A civil forfeiture case against land does not require a criminal conviction of the owner. The government argues the property is tied to illicit proceeds and asks a judge to vest title in the United States. Valencia González can contest through counsel without walking into a courtroom in Washington. If he does not contest, the ranch can go after default. If he does, the case becomes a document fight over the 2011 purchase money and later upkeep.

Washington describes CJNG as a group that takes about $1 billion a year from drugs and other crime and fields 15,000 to 20,000 people across 21 of Mexico's 32 states. The U.S. has designated it a terrorist organisation. Captures of other capos since February have not produced a public photo of Valencia González in custody. The Hemet filing is a different tool: squeeze an asset that sits on U.S. soil and carries his name, even a shortened one.

A $250,000 ranch and a $25 million bounty

The contrast is the point of the case. A 2011 cash-or-mortgage buy in Riverside County is small next to the cartel ledger the NCTC describes. It is also the kind of asset a citizen can hold in his own name for fifteen years while living as a ghost in Jalisco. Forfeiture, if the judge grants it, does not arrest him. It takes the ground in Hemet off his books and puts a federal sale on the calendar. The $25 million reward stays in place until someone walks him in.