Daniel Perez Rojas, a former Mexican special forces soldier who rose to near the top of one of the country’s most violent cartels, faces up to life in prison
A former high-ranking member of the Los Zetas cartel pleaded guilty to federal drug trafficking conspiracy charges, the Justice Department announced, marking a significant victory in the government’s campaign against transnational drug organizations.
Daniel Perez Rojas — known by the aliases Cachetes and Cacheton 49 — admitted to conspiring to distribute large quantities of cocaine and marijuana for importation into the United States. He faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life when he appears before a federal district court judge on Oct. 30.
Perez Rojas, a Mexican national, left Mexico’s special forces in 2001 to join Los Zetas, a cartel founded largely by former military officers that initially served as the armed enforcement wing of the Gulf Cartel. He rose steadily through the organization’s ranks, taking on security roles for its top leadership before being designated in 2007 as the successor to then-leader Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano.
His tenure was marked by violence and international reach. In 2008, Perez Rojas traveled to Guatemala, where the cartel had spent millions of dollars in bribes to the country’s newly elected government, to negotiate the organization’s expansion into Central America. During one such meeting, he and other Los Zetas members killed a rival Guatemalan drug trafficker along with several associates and bodyguards.
“Perez Rojas was responsible for rampant violence, corruption, and intimidation in Mexico and elsewhere that allowed the cartel’s drug trafficking to continue,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
Perez Rojas was transferred from Mexico to the United States in August 2025 under Mexico’s National Security law, with assistance from the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs. The Drug Enforcement Administration is leading the investigation.
The case is being prosecuted by trial attorneys Kirk Handrich, Hunter Smith and Erik Cervantes of the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering, Narcotics and Forfeiture Section, and falls under the umbrella of Operation Take Back America, the Justice Department’s broad initiative targeting cartels, transnational criminal organizations and illegal immigration.
By: DNU staff