A Mexican woman sanctioned for her connections to the Los Cuinis drug trafficking organization pleaded guilty to violating U.S. counternarcotics restrictions by arranging more than $504,000 in tuition payments to a Florida school, the Justice Department announced.
Wendy Dalaithy Amaral Arevalo, 45, admitted to criminal violations of the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. She faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of as much as $10 million. Her sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 2.
Amaral Arevalo is the former wife and current partner of Gerardo Gonzalez Valencia, a leader of Los Cuinis who was sentenced to life in federal prison in July 2023. Gonzalez Valencia was convicted of conspiring to distribute large quantities of cocaine for importation into the United States.
Los Cuinis is closely aligned with the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, commonly known as CJNG. The State Department designated CJNG as a foreign terrorist organization in February 2025.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Amaral Arevalo in August 2015 for assisting Los Cuinis’ international drug trafficking activities. That designation barred her from transactions involving the U.S. financial system.
Despite those restrictions, prosecutors said Amaral Arevalo entered into contracts with IMG Academy, a preparatory school and athletic training facility headquartered in Bradenton, Florida, where her child attended school. She arranged $504,497.48 in tuition payments, according to court documents.
Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva said the payments involved illicit drug proceeds and violated restrictions intended to prevent foreign narcotics traffickers and their associates from using American institutions and financial networks.
The guilty plea follows a separate enforcement action against IMG Academy. In February, OFAC announced that the school had agreed to pay $1.72 million to settle potential civil liability arising from tuition agreements and payments involving people sanctioned for connections to a Mexican cartel.
The settlement involved yearly tuition agreements with specially designated nationals, according to OFAC. The Justice Department’s announcement did not say that IMG Academy had been criminally charged in connection with Amaral Arevalo’s case.
The Drug Enforcement Administration’s Special Operations Division Bilateral Investigations Unit in Los Angeles investigated the case with assistance from OFAC. Prosecutors from the Justice Department’s Money Laundering, Narcotics and Forfeiture Section are handling the prosecution.
The case is also part of the federal Homeland Security Task Force initiative, an interagency effort targeting cartels, foreign gangs, human trafficking networks and other transnational criminal organizations.
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