Juan Carlos Valencia González, alias “El 03” or “El Pelón”, turned 42 years old last Saturday, September 12 and, unlike a year ago, he arrives with a 180-degree turnaround: being the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and one of the most wanted in the United States, with a reward of 25 million dollars for information leading to his capture, the highest amount offered in history for a Mexican drug trafficker.
Valencia González was born on September 12, 1984 in Santa Ana, California. He has dual nationality: Mexican and American, and assumed command of the cartel after the death of his stepfather, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, “El Mencho”, killed by the Mexican Army on February 22, 2026 in Tapalpa, Jalisco.
For years, the figure of El Mencho was accompanied by public demonstrations of loyalty within his territory of control. In communities of Jalisco and Michoacán, parties and fairs organized in his honor were documented, with the presence of musical bands and displays that sought to project popular roots towards the founder of the CJNG.
In contrast, there is so far no public record of celebrations, messages or demonstrations associated with El 03’s birthday, a fact that coincides with the low profile that the son of Rosalinda González Valencia and Armando Valencia Cornelio, alias Maradonna, has maintained for years.
This invisibility is not coincidental, but a strategy learned from his own stepfather, who for years was known as “the great ghost of Mexican drug traffickers” due to the lack of photographs and verified data about his personal life. 03 replicates this model with greater discipline: there are only three known official photographs of his face, all of institutional origin, among reward posters and police files.
