WASHINGTON: The brother of slain drug kingpin Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera has been sentenced to 22.5 years in prison in the United States for drug trafficking and firearms offenses, the US Justice Department said Friday.

Antonio Oseguera Cervantes, 67, had pleaded guilty in August to two charges of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as firearms possession.

Oseguera Cervantes — who is also known as “Tony Montana,” the drug lord played by Al Pacino in “Scarface” — is the brother of the late “El Mencho,” the co-founder of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

“For more than two decades, Antonio Oseguera Cervantes helped fuel one of the world’s most dangerous drug trafficking organizations, flooding America’s communities with deadly drugs while enriching himself and his associates,” assistant attorney general A. Tysen Duva said.

Duva said the sentencing “sends a clear message” to cartels that the United States is committed to their “total elimination.”

Oseguera Cervantes, a native of Mexico’s Michoacan state, worked for more than two decades for Mexican drug gangs, including the Milenio cartel, and later, CJNG.

Experts say the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, founded in 2009, has become one of Mexico’s most powerful criminal organizations.

Washington says CJNG is one of the main traffickers of heroin, cocaine, fentanyl and methamphetamine into the United States.

“El Mencho” died in February after being wounded in a shootout with Mexican soldiers in the western state of Jalisco, unleashing a wave of highway blockades and shootouts with security forces that left more than 70 people dead.

“Oseguera Cervantes was far more than El Mencho’s brother,” said Terry Cole, the administrator of the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

“He played a significant role in building CJNG into one of the most violent foreign terrorist organizations in the world.”

Oseguera Cervantes was arrested in December 2022, and then extradited to the United States in February 2025.