Promoter Pleads Guilty In Cartel Case

A former concert promoter and onetime San Antonio, Texas, resident is headed for prison after pleading guilty April 16 to charges he participated in running a Mexican drug cartel operation that included booking bands for private Zetas gatherings.

Photo: AP Photo / Refugio Ruiz

Mourners comfort each other during a ceremony to honor slain policemen, in Tlaquepaque, Mexico.

Ezequiel Joel “El Cheke” Rodriguez will be sentence July 24 in U.S. District Court to no more than 35 years, thanks to a plea deal. Rodriguez pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute narcotics. He admitted helping the Zetas cartel run 500 kilos of cocaine monthly through south Texas from Mexico and participating in at least one killing, according to the San Antonio Express-News.

Rodriguez booked top-name Mexican regional bands through his promotion business, including Los Tucanes de Tijuana and Banda Limón, the paper reports. He owned a bar in the Mexican border town of Piedras Negras, southwest of San Antonio, where he booked the popular acts. Rodriguez reportedly returned to San Antonio after “running into problems” with the Zetas over a band that refused to play a date in Nuevo Laredo.

He opened a restaurant, since closed, and mainly avoided trouble with U.S. authorities until the San Antonio Police Department’s gang unit caught him delivering “street quantities” of methamphetamine in 2013. An indictment filed four months later reportedly accused Rodriguez of drug trafficking and money laundering along with other Zetas members. He also awaits sentencing in the underlying methamphetamine case.

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