Jury Convicts Kiko Trevino after Two Hour Deliberation

Posted by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: My San Antonio

July 25, 2018                                                                                                           

A federal jury on Tuesday convicted a leader of the Zetas cartel on all seven drug-trafficking related charges he faced.

A federal jury deliberated for about two hours in Waco before returning its verdicts on charges of conspiracy to traffic drugs inland through South Texas, conspiracy to possess firearms and laundering millions of dollars in drug proceeds. He could be sentenced to up to life in prison.

He was arrested nearly two years ago outside Houston. Records show he refused a plea deal that carried a 30-year prison sentence.

Juan Francisco Treviño Chavez, 38, who is the nephew of the two previous bosses of the now-splintered cartel, now faces at least 10 years to life in prison when he’s sentenced later this year for trafficking multi-kilogram quantities of marijuana and cocaine.

Treviño, who is also known as “Kiko” and “Comandante Kiko,” is considered the last leader of the Zetas before it fragmented into the Cartel del Noreste, or CDN — which Treviño reportedly led before his arrest in fall 2016 — and a faction known as the Zetas Vieja Escuela (Old School Zetas).

The split came after his uncles, Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, known as Z-40, and Omar Treviño Morales, Z-42, were arrested by Mexican authorities in July 2013 and March 2015, respectively.

Juan Francisco Treviño Chavez was the nephew of two previous bosses of the cartel, which has since fragmented into multiple cliques. Authorities say he was responsible for shipments of millions of pounds of drugs worth billions of dollars into Texas.

The heavily -guarded trial for Juan Trevino began July 16, and federal prosecutors brought in a number of witnesses that included one of the Zeta's founders, Jesus Enrique Rejón Aguliar , also known as "Mamito". Rejón, who has been cooperating with the feds for at least four years, has testified at prior Zeta figure trials that he was a former corporal in the Mexican Army Special Forces and deserted inn 1999 to join the Zetas, then a group of hitmen for the Gulf Cartel. Rejón was the seventh member of the Zetas, which split from the Gulf Cartel in 2010, according to his testimony previously reported by the Express-News.


Juan Trevino, a U.S. citizen known as "Kiko" or "Comandante Kiko", is the second of the Tevino family to be tried in the United States. Another of his uncles, Jose Trevino, was convicted in a trial in Austin for laundering Zeta's drug money through quarterhorse racing., and was sentanced to 20 years in prison.

Note: "Mamito" was a prominent cooperative and testified in the Zeta's Horseracing money laundering trial covered here at BB. Use the search bar to access those posts.