Date: March 27, 2025
Contact: [email protected]
LOS ANGELES — The CEO of a Latin music conglomerate and his talent agency were found guilty by a jury today of conspiring to violate the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act by conducting business with a Guadalajara-based concert promoter with ties to Mexican drug cartels.
José ?ngel Del Villar of Huntington Beach, the CEO of Del Records and its related talent agency Del Entertainment Inc., was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to transact in property of specially designated narcotics traffickers in violation of the Kingpin Act and 10 counts of violating the Kingpin Act.
Co-defendant Del Entertainment also was found guilty of all 11 counts of which Del Villar was convicted.
According to evidence presented at a nine-day trial, in April 2018, the defendants did business with Jesús Pérez Alvear, a.k.a. “Chucho,” of Guadalajara, Mexico, a music promoter who controlled Gallistica Diamante, a.k.a. Ticket Premier. Pérez promoted concerts for Del Entertainment in Mexico until March 2019.
The U.S. Treasury Department listed Pérez and his company as “specially designated narcotics traffickers” under the Kingpin Act on April 6, 2018, after concluding he facilitated money laundering for the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) and the Los Cuinis drug trafficking organization. The Kingpin Act prevents people in the United States from conducting business with sanctioned persons and entities.
Even though Del Villar and Del Entertainment were aware that it was illegal to engage in transactions or dealings with Pérez, they willfully did business with him by continuing to have a Del Entertainment musical artist perform at concerts in which Pérez and Del Entertainment had a financial interest.
For example, on April 19, 2018, FBI agents approached a well-known musician and explicitly told him about Pérez’s designation under the Kingpin Act and how that prohibited him from conducting business with Pérez and performing concerts that Pérez promoted.
On April 28, 2018, the musician performed at a music concert which Pérez organized. Del Villar’s credit card was used to pay for a private jet that brought the musician from Van Nuys Airport to the performance in Aguascalientes, Mexico.
On multiple other occasions in 2018 and 2019, Pérez and Del Villar continued to do business by arranging for the musician to perform at concerts in Mexico – including Mexicali and San José Iturbide, Guanajuato.
“The defendants here chose to get into business with an individual they knew had ties to the CJNG and had been designated a narcotics trafficker under the Kingpin Act,” said Acting United States Attorney Joseph McNally. “Cartels and transnational criminal organizations cause immeasurable harm to our country. We are using every tool to eliminate these organizations and will prosecute those that do business with cartels.”
“Doing business with government-sanctioned individuals is illegal and can have very serious consequences,” said Akil Davis, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. “Today’s guilty verdict sends a message to music industry associates and others who engage in business with those sanctioned for laundering money for Mexican cartels that such criminal activity will not be tolerated by the FBI and our partners at the IRS and the United States Attorney’s Office.”
United States District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong scheduled an August 15 sentencing hearing, at which time Del Villar will face a statutory maximum sentence of 30 years in federal prison for each count. Del Entertainment will face a sentence of five years of probation and a fine of $10 million for each count.
Co-defendant Luca Scalisi of West Hollywood, has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him in this case and is scheduled to be tried separately in July 2025.
Co-defendant Pérez, who previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transact in property of specially designated narcotics traffickers, was murdered in Mexico in December 2024.
The IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) and FBI investigated this matter. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control provided significant assistance in this matter.
Assistant United States Attorneys Benedetto L. Balding and Alexander B. Schwab of the Corporate and Securities Fraud Strike Force, and Kathrynne N. Seiden of the Terrorism and Export Crimes Section, prosecuted this case, with substantial assistance from the International Narcotics, Money Laundering, and Racketeering Section.
This case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime. Operation Take Back America streamlines efforts and resources from the Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) and Project Safe Neighborhood (PSN).
This case is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach.
IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.