Say hello to our little cell: Mexican drug lord nicknamed ‘El Tony Montana’ gets 22.5 years in US prison
Say goodnight to the bad guy.
A notorious Mexican drug kingpin known as “El Tony Montana” was sentenced to 22.5 years behind bars in a US court Friday for a narcotics sales career worthy of his silver screen namesake, according to federal officials.
Antonio Oseguera Cervantes — whose movie moniker evokes the ruthless gangster played by Al Pacino in “Scarface” — was handed the sentence in Washington, DC, for drug trafficking and firearm crimes, the Department of Justice said in a press release.
The 67-year-old spent decades at the helm of a massive operation that flooded the US with cocaine and meth, first for the Milenio Cartel and then for the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación — before he was busted hiding near Guadalajara in 2022, according to federal officials.
“Oseguera Cervantes . . . played a significant role in building [the Jalisco cartel] into one of the most violent foreign terrorist organizations in the world, trafficking massive quantities of dangerous drugs that have devastated American families and communities,” Terry Cole of the Drug Enforcement Administration said in the press release.
Cervantes — whose cartel boss brother Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera was killed during a Mexican military raid in February — was a logistics operator for the wide-reaching Jalisco cartel, operated by his sibling.
He pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine for importation into the US, and possessing a firearm to help with the hustle.

Cervantes was arrested by soldiers in Mexico after he was found hiding in a warehouse with a cache of weapons in December 2022.
He was then extradited from Mexico to the United States in February 2025.
“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, of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said in a press release.
Cervantes joined the Milenio Cartel in around 2002, shortly after serving a sentence for conspiracy to distribute heroin in the US.
After doing time, he was deported to Mexico, where he continued his massive operation, according to the DOJ.