SAN ANTONIO: A former concert promoter who lived in San Antonio was sentenced Thursday to 35 years in federal prison for helping run an important drug smuggling corridor for the Zetas cartel.
Ezequiel Joel “El Cheke” Rodriguez, also called Esiquiel Rodriguez in some court documents, had faced up to life in prison had he not taken the deal.
Rodriguez was accused of participating in at least one killing with the Zetas, but he had said he did not have a hand in any violence.
In April, Rodriguez pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute narcotics, admitting he helped the Zetas run 500 kilograms of cocaine a month from Mexico through South Texas between 2000 and 2009. He also pleaded guilty in September, in a separate matter, to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute more than 300 grams of methamphetamine.
Federal prosecutors, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the San Antonio Police Department called Rodriguez a “former major drug trafficker in the Piedras Negras plaza.” Piedras Negras, where Rodriguez is originally from, is across the border from Eagle Pass. As part of his plea deal, he admitted he and his associates used the same smuggling corridors to sneak assault weapons from Texas into Mexico.
Rodriguez, 46, had long been on and off law enforcement’s radar. Indicted in San Antonio in 1997 on marijuana-trafficking charges, he was never caught and the case was eventually dismissed.
