The Mexican Attorney General's Office announced Sunday afternoon the arrest of Jose Rodolfo "El Gato" Villareal-Hernandez, the alleged mastermind behind the murder of a drug cartel lawyer in Southlake in May 2013.
The office announced the arrest on Twitter. A spokesperson for the FBI said they were not commenting on the arrest over the weekend but may have more details on Monday.
Villarreal-Hernandez was indicted on federal charges in Fort Worth and put on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list after authorities suspected he commissioned the killing of Juan Jesus Guerrero-Chapa, a Mexican defense attorney who was gunned down in Southlake Town Square in May 2013 as he shopped with his wife.
Guerrero-Chapa was the personal attorney for Osiel Cardenas, the former head of Mexico’s notorious Gulf Cartel and a U.S. government informant.
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The brother of Villarreal-Hernandez, Ramon, was arrested in 2018 in Mexico and extradited to the U.S. in 2020 for charges related to the killing. Ramon pleaded guilty last year.
Three other men who tracked Guerrero-Chapa and his family for months by using high-tech surveillance, GPS monitoring devices on their cars and remote control cameras placed around the family's Southlake home, were also convicted.
