Drug trafficker linked to Sinaloa cartel gunned down in L.A.

A convicted drug trafficker linked to the Sinaloa cartel who worked for the son of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was gunned down Thursday morning in an industrial stretch of Willowbrook, according to authorities and court records

Eduardo Escobedo, 39, was one of two men killed in the 14200 block of Towne Avenue, according to officials from the Los Angeles Medical Examiner-coroner and Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s Department. The other victim was Guillermo De Los Angeles Jr., 47.

Around 8 a.m. Thursday, sheriff ’s deputies responded to an industrial area filled with warehouses, including a truck yard, pallet storage facility and a church. Escobedo and De Los Angeles died at the scene.

A third man was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening gunshot wounds.

“It appears that there was some type of gathering or party at the location from last night to early this morning,” Lt. Omar Camacho told KABC-TV Channel 7 at the scene.

Escobedo, whose nickname, “El Mago,” translates to “The Magician,” served four years and nine months in federal prison for conspiring to distribute more than 10,000 kilograms of marijuana and laundering drug proceeds. He was released in 2018.

Raised in East Los Angeles, Escobedo rose to become the primary distributor of marijuana in Los Angeles for Guzman’s oldest son, Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, a prosecutor said at a 2014 detention hearing. He laundered the proceeds in part by buying exotic cars and shipping them to Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa and the cartel’s stronghold.

Escobedo was also alleged to have ordered the death of a rival trafficker who was gunned down in his Bentley on the 101 Freeway in 2008. While Escobedo was never charged in the murder, his brother and another man were convicted and are serving life sentences.

Escobedo was born in the United States, his lawyer, Guadalupe Valencia, said at the detention hearing. He attended Garfield High School, where he met his wife, and later graduated from a continuation school, Valencia said.

In July 2011, Escobedo, then

27, was arrested leaving a stash house where police found a ton of marijuana, Adam Braverman, an assistant U.S. attorney, said at the detention hearing. Torrance police, which served the warrant, said the stash house was in the West Adams neighborhood.

In October 2013, Escobedo was caught on a wiretap speaking with Guzman Salazar about smuggling more than five tons of marijuana through a tunnel under the U.s.-mexico border, Braverman said. Authorities seized 2.7 tons of cannabis from a courier working for Escobedo, according to the prosecutor.

Guzman Salazar remains one of Mexico’s most wanted men. One of his top lieutenants, Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas, nicknamed “El Nini,” was captured by the Mexican National Guard earlier this week in Culiacan. Justice Department officials are seeking to extradite Pérez Salas, who is charged in two U.S. jurisdictions with conspiring to traffic methamphetamine, fentanyl and cocaine; laundering money; retaliating against witnesses; and possessing machine guns.