The US government announced new sanctions against several leaders of the Jalisco Cartel this week, in a unique case that for the first time singled out a member of an organized crime group for their alleged role in a gender-based killing.
The high-profile femicide of Valeria Márquez, a TikTok influencer, occurred in May. An armed man shot and killed her while she was broadcasting live on social media from her salon in Zapopan, the largest city in the state of Jalisco and the home base of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG).
In new sanctions announced June 18 by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), authorities said that Ricardo Ruíz Velasco, alias “El Double R,” an alleged CJNG lieutenant and supposedly Márquez’s romantic partner, was a prime suspect in the crime.
“[The CJNG] uses murder as a tactic to intimidate rivals, including sending messages to other cartels through the targeted killings of women,” US Treasury officials said in the press release. “The vicious attack highlights the brutal prevalence of femicide, or the killing of women on account of their gender, in Mexico.”
The infamous founder of the group, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho,” was also targeted by the sanctions, but in relation to trafficking deadly synthetic drugs like fentanyl into the United States. Officials there have offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to his arrest.
Authorities in the United States failed to elaborate on what evidence they had linking Ruíz Velasco to Márquez’s murder. The US State Department also mentioned the targeted killing in a press release, but did not provide further details. The local attorney general’s office in Jalisco said they have no evidence linking Ruíz Velasco to the crime, but have requested that US authorities share whatever information they have that suggests he was involved.
While it is both noteworthy and unusual that the US government singled out the possible perpetrator of one of the countless gender-based killings that take place in Mexico each year, observers said it will do little to move the needle on addressing the impunity surrounding the country’s ongoing femicide crisis.
Some activists in Mexico were distrustful and suspicious of the motives behind the decision to highlight this specific case.
“There’s undoubtedly a political reason for why this crime in Jalisco is on the United States’ agenda,” said one feminist women’s rights advocate, who spoke to InSight Crime on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Culiacán, which has been among the top five cities nationally for femicides, has never been of concern to US authorities from the perspective of the femicide pandemic.”
As many as 10 women and girls have been killed every day in Mexico in recent years. In 2024, Mexico’s Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System registered at least 797 femicides across the country, although many human rights collectives argue that figure is a vast undercount. Another 2,958 women were also victims of homicide last year, and experts consulted by InSight Crime said many of those crimes may have not been catalogued correctly as femicides, which are gender hate crimes.
The Mexican government response to the crisis has been “very deficient because it has not been given the necessary attention or resources,” said the activist.“There is still a lot of reluctance on the part of the authorities to catalogue many crimes [as femicides].”
“Many prosecutors’ offices lack the expertise, technological capacity, human capacity, or material budget to be able to first investigate, then categorize, then prosecute, and eradicate these types of crimes,” she added.
While calling attention to the gender-based crimes committed by members of organized crime groups in Mexico is important, the US sanctions fall short of adequately addressing the country’s femicide crisis and better protecting victims of those crimes.
“[Both governments] need to be made aware that this is a problem that we should not cover up, deny, or normalize,” the women’s advocate told InSight Crime.
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