Three more charged in 2024 Sinaloa cartel-linked attempted hits in Southern California
Three more people have been federally charged in connection with two chaotic attempted cartel hits by teenage gunmen in 2024 in Chula Vista. The gunmen targeted a man with his family first outside a busy restaurant then opened fire hours later at the man’s upscale apartment — a shootout that left an accomplice dead.
Alleged Sinaloa Cartel associates Poly Antunez, Antonio Quinones and Jovanny Enriquez are accused of roles in either hiring two 15-year-old gunmen or guiding them through their attempts to kill the target, including providing guns and securing an AirBnB, according to newly filed documents in San Diego federal court.
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The federal filings offer the most detail to date of the two attempts to kill the target, a member of a rival cartel who was believed to have had ties to a “massive” heist of methamphetamine, cocaine and fentanyl from the Sinaloa cartel. The theft prompted “rampant retaliatory murders in Tijuana,” according to newly released court documents.
Federal prosecutors announced that the trio had been indicted on several charges, including conspiracy to commit murder and murder for hire, according to the indictment unsealed Thursday. Prosecutors also detailed their allegations in a federal memo seeking to detain Quinones and Enriquez. Antunez is already in custody and not likely to be released pretrial.
Atunez, 30, is from Chula Vista and Quinonez, 27, is from Oceanside. Enriquez, 20, is from Long Beach.
The two would-be hitmen were Andrew Nunez and Johncarlo Quintero, said to be members of a Los Angeles street gang. Nunez was 17 and Quinero was 16 when they pleaded guilty in December. They are awaiting sentencing.
Prosecutors allege the cartel intentionally hired the teens because, as 15-year-olds, they could not be charged as adults in California. But federal prosecutors took the case and charged them as adults.
“You want cowardice. I give you the Sinaloa Cartel hiring teenagers to do their dirty work,” U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said in a statement announcing the indictment.
“Today’s indictment against violent Sinaloa Cartel associates for directing teenagers to be their personal hitmen is one step closer to obtaining the final justice in this case,” said TJ Holland, acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Diego office.
Details of the following account of the incidents come from federal court documents, including the new indictment and a request from prosecutors seeking to detain Quinones and Enriquez as potential flight and public safety risks.
Federal prosecutors say the attempts to kill the victim stem from the November 2023 theft of a “massive drug load” from the Sinaloa Cartel in Tijuana. Murders of cartel members and Tijuana police followed.
In retaliation for the heist, prosecutors allege, Sinaloa put out a hit on people they believed had been involved in it — including a man called “Victim 1,” whom the cartel tried to kill in his Tijuana home a month after the heist. He fled to the U.S.
Cartel members worked with Antunez and Quinones to find him, prosecutors allege. The cartel also worked with the Mexican Mafia to hire teenage hitmen, eventually working with Enriquez, a then-18-year-old who managed the juvenile members of a Los Angeles gang. Texts between him, the teens and other gang associates are included in the filing, including one from Enriquez that says they are going to be “rich.”
“We all getting new cars, new chains, new toys,” reads a message from an account associated with Enriquez.
“U guys hitman now or what” an associate said.
“Basically,” came the reply.
Federal documents also detail what prosecutors allege happened before and during the attempts to kill “Victim 1,” whom the Union-Tribune has previously reported was the alleged leader of a Tijuana drug cell and a dual U.S.-Mexican citizen, according to sources on both sides of the border with knowledge of the investigation.
On March 26, the day before the attack, two of the defendants and the two teens delivered a Ram TRX truck to the victim, the new documents allege. They then spent the next day tracking the victim in San Ysidro and Chula Vista.
Quinones and one of the teenage shooters exchanged about 64 calls and texts up until 8:51 p.m.
The victim and his family were leaving a Chili’s restaurant when, prosecutors alleged, the teens pulled up and — as Quinones watched from afar — Quintero got out and opened fire, striking the man’s legs. The gun jammed after a single shot. The gunman got back in the passenger seat. Nunez tried to drive over the victim, but he was able to make it to safety.
Antunez, Quinones and the teenagers quickly regrouped at the AirBnB, and a long call to a Mexican phone number followed. As a result, prosecutors allege, an adult member of the teenagers’ gang would join in with more guns, and the cartel would increase the payment. The three expected to get a total of $150,000, one communication states.
Early March 27, five hours after the restaurant attack, the two teenagers and the adult, 28-year-old Ricardo Sanchez, showed up at the victim’s apartment to finish the job.
Sanchez banged on the door. A friend of the victim opened up. The teenagers opened fire “indiscriminately.”
The friend who had opened the door was shot and wounded but returned fire to protect himself and others, killing Sanchez. The teens fled and called Quinones for help. Nunez and Quintero were apprehended by police later that day.
The only people at the apartment when the shooting started were the wife and child of the intended target and the friend who opened the door. Their target was at a hospital seeking treatment for his wounds from the attack hours earlier.
The murder the two teens pleaded guilty to was the death of their accomplice Sanchez. Under California law, which makes up an element of the federal murder in aid of racketeering charge they admitted to, one person attempting to kill a second person can be charged with murder if a third person is killed.