The Mexican drug cartel leader, known as ‘La Barbie,’ has been sentenced to nearly 50 years in prison on drug and money laundering charges.
Edgar Valdez Villarreal, 44, the Texas-born, former high school football player who authorities said rose to the top ranks of a Mexican drug cartel, was given the hefty prison sentence Monday in Atlanta, Georgia.
Villarreal, affiliated with the Beltran-Leyva Cartel, was also ordered to forfeit $192million.
Texas-born cartel leader Edgar Valdez Villarreal (in 2010), aka ‘La Barbie,’ was sentenced to 50 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $192million by a judge in Atlanta, Georgia
Known as ‘La Barbie’ because of his light eyes, blond hair and fair complexion, Villarreal was accused of bringing trucks full of cocaine from Mexico to the eastern United States and shipping millions of dollars in cash back to Mexico.
Villarreal, the son of a club owner, was a linebacker on the Loredo United high school football team in Loredo, Texas, where he was born. As a teen, he allegedly was a street dealer, selling marijuana, although he never faced drug charges at the time.
Authorities said that he moved to Mexico in the late 1990s, after he was indicted on marijuana charges, then joined the Beltran-Leyva cartel, when it was aligned with El Chapo’s Sinaloa cartel, rising quickly through the Beltra-Leyva ranks to become a high-ranking cartel leader.
Villarreal was said to have maintained a flashy lifestyle, wearing expensive suits, going to nightclubs and owning property in the ritziest parts of Mexico City.
Villarreal, who frequently wore Polo shirts, has been credited with helping to kick off the ‘narco polo’ trend in Mexico, leading to a growing market for knock-off versions of the Ralph Lauren shirts, according to Business Insider.
Mexican marines killed the cartel’s leader, Arturo Beltran Leyva, during a gun battle in Cuernavaca in December 2009, leading to a brutal power struggle involving Villarreal and Leyva’s brother, Hector.
The two began a bloody fight for control that left dismembered and decapitated bodies in the streets and often hanging from bridges in Cuernavaca and Acapulco, along with threatening messages.
Villarreal grew up in Loredo, Texas, where he was born, and played football in high school. While a teen, he was a street dealer, selling marijuana
Authorities said Villarreal (in 2010), a former high school football player, rose to the top ranks of the Beltran-Leyva Cartel before being arrested outside Mexico City in August 2010
An elite U.S.-trained Mexican federal police squad acting on tips arrested Villarreal and four others at a woody vacation home outside Mexico City in August 2010.
At the time, then-Mexican President Felipe Calderon called Villarreal ‘one of the most-wanted criminals in Mexico and abroad.’
Villarreal was among 13 people extradited to the U.S. in September 2015 to face charges.
He pleaded guilty in January 2016 to conspiring to import and distribute cocaine and conspiring to launder money.
Vilarreal’s alleged Valdez associate, Carlos Montemayor Gonzalez, was extradited along with him and also faces charges. He has pleaded not guilty, and his case is pending.
Prosecutors had requested that the judge send Villarreal to prison for 55 years, in addition to forfeiting the $192 million.