Justice Department moves to seize the Hemet ranch tied to CJNG’s new chief

The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking a California ranch that records and reporting link to Juan Carlos Valencia González, the man Mexico and the United States now treat as head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. El País reported on 29 August that a federal civil forfeiture complaint filed in the District of Columbia at the end of July names the Hemet estate. The Money Laundering, Narcotics and Forfeiture Section of the Criminal Division is running the case. The property covers 19,468 square metres, about three football pitches, in a residential zone of Hemet. Assessed value is close to $700,000. No building permit has been pulled in 15 years.

Valencia González bought the land in 2011, at 26, for $250,000. The deed uses Juan Carlos González, his mother’s surname, not Oseguera. Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as El Mencho, was his stepfather and the previous CJNG leader. Mencho died in February 2026. The Wall Street Journal named Valencia González as the new chief on 18 March. El País repeated that reading on 6 April. A DEA source told the paper the Hemet place is managed by a maternal uncle, José María González Valencia.

OFAC listed Valencia González at the end of July in a joint U.S.-Mexico package against 55 people and firms tied to CJNG. Treasury called it the largest such action against the group. The listing freezes assets that a U.S. person can reach and bars U.S. firms from dealing with him. The State Department has advertised a reward of up to $25 million for information that leads to his arrest and conviction. He remains a fugitive. He was born in Santa Ana, California, which makes the Hemet file a domestic forfeiture against a U.S.-born defendant, not only a foreign-kingpin case.

Civil forfeiture does not need a criminal conviction. The government has to show, to the civil standard, that the land is tied to illegal proceeds. Title in the mother’s name and a 2011 purchase price are the facts already in public reporting. Whether a D.C. judge accepts the link is the next step. Hemet residents, El País wrote, mostly do not know the owner of the quiet ranch as a wanted man.

CJNG is the organisation the United States has designated a terrorist group. Valencia González is also described, in Mexican defence briefings cited on his public record, as the organiser of Grupo Élite, an armed wing active in Michoacán, Zacatecas and Guanajuato. The Hemet case does not try those crimes. It tries a parcel. If the government wins, the ranch becomes federal property. If it loses, the deed stays where it is and the $25 million reward is still on the man, not the land.