In a navy raid supported by the USA, Mexican forces have positioned and killed one of many nation’s most infamous drug lords, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, often known as “El Mencho”.
Within the quick aftermath of his killing on Sunday, violence erupted in quite a few areas of Mexico as gunmen set autos ablaze and erected roadblocks throughout 20 states.
We break down who El Mencho was, how he was killed and what his demise means for the US and Mexico.
Who was El Mencho?
He was the chief of the Jalisco New Technology Cartel, which operates from the western state of Jalisco and is understood for its massive military-style arsenal.
Aged 59 when he was killed, El Mencho was from the neighbouring state of Michoacan. It’s rumoured that he was a police officer earlier than he grew to become a drug lord.
He rose within the ranks of Mexico’s drug-trafficking underworld within the Nineties. In 1994, he was convicted within the US of heroin trafficking and served almost three years in jail earlier than returning to Mexico.
There are many tales about El Mencho’s outrageous strategies of creating threats and coping with adversaries.
He as soon as reportedly despatched a severed pig’s head in an ice chest to a Mexican legal professional as a risk, Rolling Stone journal reported in 2015, citing an unnamed former DEA area agent.
A name recording captured him threatening an area police commander with the decision signal “Delta One”, promising to kill him “and even your canine” if his officers didn’t again off, then ending with a nonchalant “Sorry for the unhealthy language”.
As El Mencho rose to turn into s highly effective drug vendor, he started to closely put money into submarines, which he used to move medicine from South America to the US, Rolling Stone reported. It added, citing the previous DEA agent, that El Mencho employed Russian naval engineers to assist design the submarines.
He grew to become one among Washington’s most needed fugitives, and it had supplied a $15m reward for info resulting in his arrest.
What is understood in regards to the Jalisco New Technology Cartel?
El Mencho based the cartel in about 2009 and quickly expanded it, utilizing on-line recruitment and diversifying its earnings streams via gasoline theft, extortion, timeshare scams and different rackets.
The US has recognized the Jalisco cartel together with the Sinaloa Cartel because the organisations primarily chargeable for trafficking fentanyl into the US lately. The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) considers the Jalisco cartel to be as highly effective as Sinaloa with a presence in all 50 US states. The DEA stated it’s lively in 21 of Mexico’s 32 states.
The Jalisco cartel has turn into infamous for its assaults on Mexican safety forces. In 2015, it shot down a navy helicopter in Jalisco.
In 2020, it tried to assassinate then-Mexico Metropolis Police Chief Omar Garcia Harfuch, who now serves because the federal safety secretary.
In February final yr, Mexico handed over senior Jalisco cartel chief Antonio Oseguera Cervantes, El Mencho’s brother, to the US. This got here days after the US designated eight Latin American legal and drug-trafficking teams as “international terrorist organisations”, together with the Jalisco cartel.
How did El Mencho die?
El Mencho was killed by Mexican particular forces throughout a navy operation to seize him in Talpalpa within the southern a part of Jalisco on Sunday.
Troops have been despatched in to arrest El Mencho, and his followers tried to combat them off. Authorities stated he was killed in the course of the operation.
What do we all know in regards to the operation?
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum stated on X on Sunday that the Secretariat of Nationwide Defence reported the operation had been carried out by federal forces.
“My recognition to the Mexican Military, Nationwide Guard, Armed Forces, and Safety Cupboard,” Sheinbaum wrote.
White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X that the US had supplied intelligence to the Mexican authorities to help with the operation.
“On this operation, three further cartel members have been killed, three have been wounded, and two have been arrested,” Leavitt posted. Authorities haven’t confirmed their identities.
How vital is the US involvement?
Benjamin Smith, a professor of Latin American historical past on the College of Warwick in the UK, advised Al Jazeera that the newest captures of Mexican drug bosses have been backed by the US. “This isn’t new,” he stated.
Vanessa Rubio-Marquez, affiliate dean for prolonged schooling for the College of Public Coverage on the London College of Economics, stated the US involvement within the operation “speaks about the necessity to have everlasting and efficient dialogue and cooperation between each international locations”.
“As a transnational exercise that features import of precursors, manufacturing, trafficking, consumption, cash laundering, circulation of arms, extortion and corruption from each side of the border, each international locations must work collectively to fight these organisations and their illegal actions and with the ability to shield residents,” stated Rubio-Marquez, who has represented Mexico in numerous worldwide fora, together with the United Nations and the Worldwide Financial Fund.
What has occurred since El Mencho’s killing?
Violence erupted on Sunday in at the least 20 Mexican states, together with Jalisco, Colima, Michoacan, Nayarit, Guanajuato and Tamaulipas.
Officers in Jalisco, Michoacan and Guanajuato reported that at the least 14 folks have been killed in Sunday’s violence, together with seven members of the nationwide guard.
Jalisco’s capital, Guadalajara, which is to host a number of matches on this yr’s FIFA World Cup, was largely shut down on Sunday evening as residents sheltered indoors. 4 high-level soccer matches deliberate for Sunday have been postponed.
Movies on social media confirmed passengers operating in panic via Guadalajara’s airport and smoke rising over the resort metropolis of Puerto Vallarta. Governor Pablo Lemus urged folks to remain house and suspended public transport whereas faculties have been closed on Monday in a number of states.
The US embassy in Mexico issued a safety alert for US residents in Jalisco, Tamaulipas, Michoacan, Guerrero and Nuevo Leon, advising them to remain indoors.
How have Mexicans reacted?
Analysts stated the Mexican public is generally supportive of the federal government’s actions to rein within the cartels.
The federal government reported in December that the common variety of killings per day in Mexico had dropped by 37 p.c since Sheinbaum took office in October 2024.
“She’s extraordinarily in style,” Smith stated. “And Mencho was broadly loathed.”
Sheinbaum had an approval score of about 70 p.c as of late January, in accordance with the Americas Society and Council of the Americas, New York-based organisations centered on selling cultural and political understanding and enterprise ties within the Americas. The score has been constant since Sheinbaum was elected.
“It was extensively identified – and criticised – that President Claudia Sheinbaum’s predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador adopted a coverage of ‘hugs not bullets’,” Rubio-Marquez stated.
“This can be a clear U-turn to this former coverage by a Morena [Lopez Obrador and Sheinbaum’s party] authorities and an implicit recognition that crime must be confronted with choice and a classy technique that features info, intelligence and cooperation with the US and coordination and coaching with actors on the totally different ranges of presidency.”
What would possibly occur subsequent?
The operation that killed El Mencho may gain advantage Mexico in its negotiations with US President Donald Trump’s administration, which has threatened to impose tariffs and even resort to navy motion if Mexico doesn’t clamp down on drug cartels.
Nonetheless, specialists stated the operation might spark a brand new wave of violence in Mexico as a result of cartels might retaliate towards safety forces. Smith stated the operation might end in “extra public murders”.
“For the final yr, the Mexican state has managed to convey down homicides. I believe this killing will reverse that pattern,” he stated.
It’s unclear what the long run holds for the Jalisco New Technology Cartel as a result of El Mencho’s demise has left an influence vacuum and it’s unknown who will succeed him.
“The combat towards legal actors shouldn’t be solely about eliminating leaders and bringing them to justice,” Rubio-Marquez stated. “It implies a fancy technique that features prevention, the fight of highly effective arms utilized by cartels, the disarticulation of their multi-layered networks, safety and safety for residents, and efficient insurance policies in direction of social inclusion and social cohesion, financial improvement.”
