Teenagers Sentenced To 25 Years In Prison In California For Being Sinaloa Cartel Hitmen

Two teenagers were sentenced to 25 years in prison in California after being found guilty of being hitmen for the Sinaloa Cartel.

Andrew Nunez and Johncarlo Quintero were 15 when they committed the crimes in March 2024, according to Border Report.

They pleaded guilty the following year to murder and attempted murder charges, saying they were hired by the cartel to kill a target and expected to get paid about $50,000 for the job.

In their plea agreement they detailed driving from Wilmington, California, to a restaurant in San Diego and approaching the target as he was leaving it with his family.

Quintero got out of the car and fired at the target, hitting him in the leg. After that, the gun jammed, prompting him to go back in the car, where Nunez sought to run him over.

They fled the scene but returned to the target's home hours later along with an older accomplice. They knocked on the door and, after the target opened it, Quintero and Nunez shot him several times. However, he survived after being shot in the hand, arm and face.

Elsewhere in the plea deal, the hitmen acknowledged being hired because they were minors, knowing they couldn't be tried as adults under California law because they were under 16.

However, U.S. District Judge Todd W. Robinson said that cartels "need to be put on notice that you don't get a pass when you have a juvenile commit an offense like this."

But cartels are unlikely to care about the fate of many of their operatives. According to mathematician Rafael Prieto-Curiel, criminal organizations in Mexico recruit more members than they lose through arrests or deaths. He estimates that cartels across the country now have more than 180,000 members.

"The cartel is compensating, and it compensates faster than we are able to harm it," Prieto-Curiel said in an interview with Mexican journalist Luis Chaparro. "Ten years ago there were about 112,000 people in cartels. By 2023 we were already at 175,000, and now we estimate about 183,000."

To achieve this, major drug cartels in Mexico have adopted new recruitment strategies. One of them is forced recruitment, which often involves fake job postings or deceptive offers targeting young people on social media. Those who fall for the schemes are later kidnapped and forced to join the criminal groups. There have also been reports of recruitment taking place inside rehabilitation and addiction treatment centers.

Another way cartels have expanded their ranks is by convincing young people that joining an armed group is the only path to improving their lives, and an easy way for them to do that is through social media.