The reaction to the recent killing of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho,” the former head of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation, mostly ignored an interesting fact: His wife, Rosalinda González Valencia, has been active in the drug business longer than her husband, and following his death, allegedly remains a key player in Mexico’s criminal landscape.
As International Women’s Day approaches, women continue to be a fundamental part of Latin America’s organized crime groups and have held high-ranking positions in the drug business since the narcotics trade between Latin America and the United States began in the 1940s and 1950s – a central point of my book, “Narcas: The Secret Rise of Women in Latin America’s Cartels.”
González Valencia may not inherit the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG) that El Mencho led, but will likely remain a central part of its financial structure, as her family is deeply embedded in its inception and operation.
González Valencia was first arrested in Jalisco in May 2018 on money laundering charges, then freed three months later due to a lack of evidence. She was captured again in November 2021, sentenced to five years for financial crimes, and released in early 2025 for good behavior.
Her case exemplifies how much more nuanced the role of women in Latin America’s organized crime is. Women’s contributions are often reduced to two binaries: lethal female killers or victims of organized crime. The reality, however, is infinitely more diverse and complex.
Growing evidence suggests women are present in all ranks of organized crime groups and markets, and have a much more daily presence in criminal activities than limited gender-stereotyped portrayals would have us believe. Their presence is not a novelty. Rather, they are a permanent part of the clan-based networks around which organized crime metastasizes in Latin America.
The number of women behind bars for drug-related offenses in the region has increased dramatically over the last two decades, according to research by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). And crime related to the drug business is the main driver of female incarceration in most of the countries in the region. For many women, the drug trade is a risky opportunity that they are taking.
Keeping it in the Family
In the case of González Valencia, her family was already firmly established in the business. Her uncle, Armando Valencia Cornelio, alias “El Maradona,” founded the now-extinct Milenio Cartel, out of which sprouted the CJNG that her husband created and directed. Many Milenio members joined the CJNG and El Mencho, and Rosalinda’s brothers also founded the Cuinis, which was reportedly responsible for much of the CJNG’s finances and money laundering operations. Erika Gonzalez Valencia, possibly a sibling of Rosalinda’s, is also reportedly in the Cuinis structure and was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department in 2019. Another nine women are highlighted in a structural breakdown of its ranks.
Jessica Oseguera González, alias “La Negra,” González Valencia and El Mencho’s daughter, was arrested in February 2020 and served time in the United States for running businesses connected to her father’s drug empire.
How we document and police organized crime is impacted by the gender composition of law enforcement agencies, as well as assumptions around male versus female behavior and characteristics that we all have.
As a global community, we are more comfortable believing that women are co-opted and victimized by organized crime rather than protagonists. Narrative dominates over reality, but most people in organized crime – men as well as women – live in complex ecosystems. They’re often let down by a social and political system that impacts their life choices. Many, although not all, of the women who move into the drug business come from marginalized communities and have often been the victims of domestic, intra-familial violence. Men are impacted by the expectations around their gender as well.
But to assume that women have no agency is to ignore the capacities women have shown, for years, in the legal economy. The underworld is no different, and women work across the spectrum: as money launderers, killers, transporters, brokers, and logistical masterminds.
Below, we profile just a handful of the women who have been deeply instrumental in the region’s organized crime networks.
Maria del Rosario Navarro Sánchez
Sánchez was one of the first Mexicans to be charged with providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization – the CJNG – back in April 2025. US prosecutors allege that she worked for the group smuggling migrants, trafficking weapons, and smuggling cash and drugs. Her indictment came months after the first terrorist designations were announced by the administration of US President Donald Trump.
Digna Valle
Valle was the matriarch of the Valles Clan in Honduras. One of 13 siblings of a family based in El Espiritu, on the shared border with Guatemala, her clan moved cocaine across the international line on its way to Mexico and was a key transportation link for the Sinaloa Cartel. Her family reportedly hosted Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias “El Chapo,” when he was a fugitive, and Digna was the first of her family to be arrested during a trip to Miami in 2014. She subsequently helped bring in her violent brothers, as well as her son, all of whom were part of the Valle Valle structure. She was released in 2018 and given the right to stay in the United States under the Convention Against Torture, although InSight Crime was told by sources that she eventually went home to Honduras.
Guadalupe Fernández Valencia
Also known as “la Patrona,” Valencia is the highest-ranking woman in the Sinaloa Cartel known to date. She was the right-hand woman to Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, also known as Alfredillo, one of two of El Chapo’s sons who controls the Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel and remains at large in Mexico. Fernández Valencia was a major money launderer and logistics runner and was arrested in Culiacán in February 2016, a month after El Chapo was taken into custody for the final time. She pleaded guilty in a Chicago court, and after a total of eight years in detention, walked free in October 2023.
Antonella Marchant
Marchant headed one of the most feared drug trafficking organizations in Santiago, Chile, founded by her father. She was arrested in 2021 – for the second time – and incarcerated, at which point she started to video blog about her life and relationship with another prominent female offender, Sabrina Durán. The two women met behind bars, and formed a huge following online until Durán was murdered following her release in 2023. Her funeral was considered a risk to public safety by the Chilean government.
Itania Noemi Hernandez Zepeda
Also known as “La Alemana” or “Güera,” Zepeda was a regional leader of the Mayiza faction of the Sinaloa Cartel in Manzanillo, Colima, until her capture in November 2024. Mexican authorities said she was one of the biggest generators of violence in the key port town, often butting heads with the CJNG.
Marllory Chacón Rossell
Known as the “Queen of the South,” Chacón was once called the most prolific money launderer in the region by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The Guatemalan drug trafficker rose to power through links with local elites and is accused of working with the Lorenzana family clan to help Mexican groups like the Zetas and Sinaloa Cartel traffic cocaine into the United States. After turning herself in to US authorities in 2014, she helped bring down various traffickers, earning her release from prison after just five years.
María Dolores Estévez Zuleta
Known as Lola “La Chata” for her small, flat nose, she was once considered Mexico’s public enemy number one. Estévez Zuleta rose to fame for her trafficking of marijuana, morphine, and opium along the US-Mexico border and eventually ventured into illegal alcohol, prostitution, and stolen animals. She was arrested and escaped seven times, before finally staying in prison until her death in 1959.
Abigail Pender contributed to reporting.