Wenshen Xu, 52, a Honduras-based Chinese national who was extradited from Guatemala, was sentenced on Thursday, October 29, to 12 years in federal prison for conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, conspiring to launder money derived from drug trafficking, and providing material support to a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization — specifically the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, known as the CJNG.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
Alongside the prison term, the sentence includes five years of supervised release and a $22 million money judgment, the Justice Department said. The case was prosecuted in the Eastern District of Virginia as part of the Homeland Security Task Force initiative, and the Drug Enforcement Administration investigated it.
A transport network built for multi-kilogram loads
According to court documents cited by the Justice Department, Xu used a transportation network and contacts in Latin America to smuggle multi-kilogram loads of cocaine into the United States. That network included access to airstrips, airports, armored cars, couriers and associates, the department said.
From in or around November 2023 until his arrest, Xu and his co-conspirators imported over 450 kilograms of cocaine into the United States and coordinated the laundering of over $22 million from the sale of cocaine and fentanyl by drug trafficking organizations, prosecutors said. The laundering network used cryptocurrency money transfers, trade-based money laundering and encrypted communications platforms to conceal the money, according to court documents.
Xu was arrested in Guatemala, at the request of the United States, on July 17, 2025, after he and others agreed to arrange and facilitate the transportation of a multi-kilogram load of cocaine out of Cali, Colombia, on behalf of an individual who claimed to represent the CJNG. He was extradited to the United States on January 30.
What officials said
"This defendant conspired to help international drug trafficking organizations bring illegal drugs into the United States and tens of millions of dollars in dirty money out of the United States," said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, adding that every Homeland Security Task Force prosecution of money launderers who prop up designated terrorist organizations "makes America safer."
"We are determined to stop the transnational criminal organizations that flood our streets with drugs and stem the tide of money that fuels their violence," said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Theophani K. Stamos for the Eastern District of Virginia. DEA Special Agent in Charge Dustin Gillespie of the Special Operations Division said transnational criminal organizations "operate without regard for borders, but they cannot outrun justice."
Background: why the CJNG label matters in this case
The CJNG was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization under the Immigration and Nationality Act and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order 13224 on February 20, 2025, the Justice Department noted in its earlier extradition announcement in this same case. That designation is what turned material support to the cartel into a terrorism-related count alongside the cocaine-import and money-laundering conspiracies.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice (extradition announcement)
The investigation was led by the DEA's Special Operations Division, Bilateral Investigations Unit, with assistance from the DEA's Office of Special Intelligence and its offices in Colombia and Guatemala, the Colombian National Police and the Guatemalan National Police. The Justice Department's Office of International Affairs, the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala helped secure the arrest and extradition. Trial Attorneys Chelsea R. Rooney and Claire M. Galasso and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Edgardo J. Rodriguez and Christopher M. Carter prosecuted the case.
Xu will serve the 12-year federal term, followed by five years of supervised release, and the $22 million money judgment stands against him. The Justice Department presented the sentence as the closing chapter of the prosecution that began with his July 2025 arrest in Guatemala and his January extradition to the United States.
For readers in the United States — including Punjabi truckers who work the freight corridors cartels try to exploit — the case is a reminder of how drug money moves: not only in packages, but through cryptocurrency transfers, trade invoices and encrypted chats, which is why investigators said they followed the money as closely as the cocaine itself.