The alleged one-time financial head of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel pleaded guilty to stalking a man who was killed at Southlake Town Square in 2013.
Ramon Villareal Hernandez made his guilty plea on June 30. He was arrested in Mexico in May 2018 and then extradited to the U.S. in 2020.
Villareal is charged with murder for hire in connection with the attack of Juan Jesus Guerrero Chapa in May 2013.
Guerrero was at the town square with his wife when two assassins drove up and shot him multiple times. Guerrero was a U.S. government informant at the time of his death. He was also the personal lawyer for the former head of the Gulf Cartel, Osiel Cardenas.
Guerrero’s wife was not injured in the shooting.
The two gunmen, who authorities identified as Clorox and Captain, have not been arrested. Three other men were convicted in 2016 of stalking Guerrero with high-tech surveillance equipment placed on his car and around his estate in Southlake. Some of the equipment included a GPS device and remote-controlled cameras.
As part of Villareal’s plea bargain, the murder for hire charge will be dropped, and he will get a 10-year sentence as agreed by prosecutors.
Villareal is the brother of Rodolfo Villareal Hernandez, the reputed regional head of a cartel run in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon. According to federal prosecutors, Rodolfo, also known as El Gato, ordered the hit on Chapa. He is currently on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List.
Villareal’s sentencing is scheduled for October.