A West Hollywood man who served as chief financial officer for one of Latin music’s biggest independent labels was sentenced Tuesday to eight months in federal prison for doing business with a Mexican concert promoter the U.S. Treasury had already identified as a cartel money launderer.
Luca Scalisi, 59, was the last of three defendants to be sentenced in the Del Entertainment case. A federal judge in downtown Los Angeles also ordered him to pay a $15,000 fine. Scalisi had pleaded guilty in May 2025 to one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act.
What Del Records Was
Del Records wasn’t some rinky-dink wannabe label. Angel Del Villar started it in Bell Gardens back in 2009. Regional Mexican music was his format — corridos, norteños — and Mexican radio was blowing up. He reaped the rewards. The label had a distribution deal with Universal Music Group’s Ingrooves that ran for years. One of its artists, Eslabón Armado, had collaborated with Peso Pluma and was sitting at north of 40 million monthly Spotify listeners. HYBE, the South Korean company that built BTS into a global phenomenon, was reportedly sniffing around a Del Records acquisition in 2023. This was a legit operation with real money behind it. A video of the actual FBI raid is below.
It wasn’t some fly-by-night operation.
Which makes what happened next harder to explain away.
The Promoter and the Cartel
Starting in April 2018, Del Entertainment did concert business in Mexico with a Guadalajara promoter named Jesús Pérez Alvear, who went by “Chuco.” Pérez ran a company called Gallistica Diamante, also known as Ticket Premier.
Here’s the problem with that. On April 6, 2018 — the exact same month the relationship started — the U.S. Treasury Department put Pérez and his company on the Kingpin Act sanctions list, designating them as narcotics traffickers. Treasury’s conclusion: Pérez laundered money for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, known as CJNG, and the Los Cuinis organization. CJNG isn’t a minor player. It’s considered one of Mexico’s most powerful and violent cartels.
Del Villar’s team knew. According to trial evidence, Del Records actually drafted a press release saying the company had “no choice” but to “obey U.S. law and not allow the bookings of any of my shows to individuals the Dept. of Treasury has deemed sanctioned.” They never sent it. The concerts continued. At some point, FBI agents sat down with a Del Records artist and told him directly about Pérez’s designation. That artist still flew to Mexico on a private jet and performed at a Pérez-promoted show.
How the Case Ended
Del Villar, 45, of Huntington Beach, went to trial and lost. A jury convicted him in March 2025 on one conspiracy count and 10 additional Kingpin Act violations. He was sentenced in August 2025 to four years in federal prison and fined $2 million. Del Entertainment as a company was convicted on all 11 counts, put on three years’ probation, and fined $1.8 million.
Scalisi took a plea before trial. Tuesday’s eight-month sentence closed out the prosecution.
Pérez never made it to sentencing. He had already pleaded guilty but was murdered in Mexico in December 2024, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation, and the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control investigated the case. It was brought under Operation Take Back America, a Justice Department initiative targeting cartels and transnational criminal organizations.
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