Cartel Ex-Wife Pleads Guilty After Sending Son to Luxury Florida School

Wendy Dalaithy Amaral Arevalo, ex-wife and current partner of Gerardo Gonzalez Valencia, a senior figure in the Los Cuinis group that finances the CJNG cartel, entered a guilty plea for violating U.S. counternarcotics sanctions. Court filings reveal she enrolled her son at IMG Academy in Florida, paying $504,497.48 in tuition despite her inclusion on the Treasury’s OFAC sanctions list since 2015. Federal prosecutors are seeking a sentence of up to ten years imprisonment and a $10 million penalty, with a hearing scheduled for December.

The CJNG and its affiliates were labeled foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S. in 2015, and the cartel is known for extreme violence and drug trafficking. Gonzalez Valencia is already serving a life sentence for large-scale cocaine trafficking. The case underscores the U.S. government’s resolve to enforce sanctions and target the financial networks of Mexican drug cartels.