The CEO of a prominent Latin music label from Huntington Beach was sentenced Thursday, Aug. 14 to four years in federal prison for doing business with a Guadalajara concert promoter linked to two of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels, the Department of Justice announced.
In April 2018, José Ángel Del Villar, 45, head of Del Records and its talent agency Del Entertainment Inc., began working with Jesús Pérez Alvear — known as “Chucho” — to promote concerts in Mexico, according to prosecutors. This was after the U.S. Treasury Department had sanctioned Pérez under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act for allegedly laundering money for the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación and the Los Cuinis drug trafficking organization. The Kingpin Act prohibits U.S. citizens and companies from doing business with sanctioned individuals or entities.
Del Villar and his label continued booking their artists for concerts promoted by Pérez, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. FBI agents warned a well-known musician on April 19, 2018, about Pérez’s designation under the Kingpin Act and the legal ban on working with him. Just over a week later, Del Villar’s credit card was used to pay for a private jet that flew the musician from Van Nuys to a Pérez-organized show in Aguascalientes, Mexico, federal officials said. The two men continued working together through 2018 and 2019, arranging additional performances in cities including Mexicali and San José Iturbide, Guanajuato.
“Far from being an unwitting participant in a ‘gotcha’ crime, [Del Villar] orchestrated a sophisticated criminal scheme sustained over a lengthy period of time and involving myriad unlawful transactions,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo.
Co-defendant Luca Scalisi, 59, of West Hollywood, pleaded guilty in May to the conspiracy charge and is set to be sentenced Oct. 22. Pérez, who had also pleaded guilty, was killed in Mexico in December 2024.
Last week, the Treasury Department sanctioned another performer associated with Del Villar’s businesses, Ricardo Hernández Medrano, also known as “El Makabelico” or “Comando Exclusivo,” for allegedly using concerts and royalties to launder money for the Cartel del Noreste, formerly Los Zetas.
A federal jury in March convicted Del Villar and Del Entertainment of one count of conspiracy to transact in property of specially designated narcotics traffickers and 10 counts of violating the Kingpin Act. In addition to the prison term, Del Villar was fined $2 million. Del Entertainment was sentenced to three years of corporate probation — a court-supervised compliance period — and ordered to pay $1.8 million.