Who Was El Mencho? Mexico’s Most Wanted Drug Cartel Chief Killed In Major Military Operation
· Free Press Journal
Mexico’s most wanted drug lord, Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, alias El Mencho, the feared chief of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), has been killed during a military operation aimed at arresting him, Mexican authorities confirmed.
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According to Mexico’s Defence Department, Oseguera was wounded during a security forces operation on Sunday in Tapalpa, located about two hours southwest of Guadalajara. He later died while being airlifted to Mexico City.
Oseguera, 60, had long been one of the most elusive and powerful crime bosses in the world. US authorities had placed a bounty of up to USD 15 million on his head, making him one of America’s most wanted fugitives due to his role in trafficking fentanyl and other narcotics into the United States.
The operation marked the Mexican government’s most significant move yet to demonstrate to the Trump administration its resolve to crack down on powerful drug cartels. However, the crackdown triggered an immediate and violent backlash. CJNG members set vehicles ablaze and blocked roads across nearly a dozen Mexican states, sending plumes of smoke into the air and forcing civilians indoors.
Life in Guadalajara, the cartel’s stronghold, came to a near standstill as residents sheltered in place. Schools were shut in several states on Monday amid security concerns.
Who Was Oseguera AKA El Mencho?
Born in 1966 in the western state of Michoacan, Oseguera began life as a farm worker before travelling to the United States, where prosecutors say he became involved in the heroin trade. After serving prison time in the US, he was deported to Mexico, briefly joined the police, and later entered the Milenio Cartel, a faction linked to the Sinaloa Cartel.
He eventually broke away to form the CJNG, combining large-scale drug trafficking with extreme violence. Under his leadership, the cartel became infamous for beheadings, targeted assassinations and attacks on security forces. In 2015, CJNG gunmen even shot down a military helicopter to help him escape capture.
Those hunted by his assassins were seldom as fortunate. His organisation regularly used beheadings and other gruesome tactics to instill fear. During a six-week stretch in 2015, the group murdered roughly two dozen police officers in western Mexico as a stark warning to the authorities.
In 2020, Mexico City’s police chief at the time, Omar García Harfuch, survived a brazen assassination attempt that left two of his bodyguards dead, an attack officials attributed to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Now serving as Mexico’s security chief, Harfuch later helped oversee the operation targeting Oseguera.