Nemesio ‘El Mencho’ Oseguera, the notorious leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, has been killed in a military operation, marking a significant blow to one of Mexico’s most powerful and violent drug cartels.
Mexican drug lord Nemesio Oseguera, commonly known as ‘El Mencho,’ infamous for the bloody trail of bodies he left behind in battles with government forces and rival gangs, died in a military raid on Sunday, according to Reuters.
As the shadowy leader of the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), an international criminal enterprise widely viewed as one of Mexico’s most powerful, Oseguera masterminded the CJNG’s emergence as a criminal empire rivaling his former allies in the Sinaloa Cartel.
Oseguera was born in 1966 in a poor village in the mountains of the rugged and notoriously lawless western state of Michoacan. There, cultivation of opium poppies and marijuana have competed with avocado production for decades. He worked the fields as a boy, and later went to seek his fortune in the U.S., where prosecutors said he got into the heroin trade. After a few years, he was arrested and served time in a U.S. prison.
He was deported back to Mexico, where he joined the police before entering the Milenio Cartel, a satellite of the Sinaloa Cartel. Eventually, he became a top enforcer after stints as a sicario, or cartel assassin. After a failed attempt at taking over the Milenio Cartel, he struck out alone, declared war on Sinaloa, and founded the CJNG in alliance with a local gang of money launderers.
The CJNG mixed Sinaloa-style drug trafficking and community outreach with the ultra-violent methods of the Zetas Cartel, a gang that used paramilitary tactics to diversify into criminal enterprises such as extortion and kidnapping. For years, Oseguera paid off police to cover his back as he operated with near-total impunity inside Jalisco. He also sought political protection.
Noting El Mencho’s ability to win public support, Edgardo Buscaglia, an organized crime expert at Columbia University, pointed to footage broadcast during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic of people lining up for CJNG-stamped food packages handed out by cartel gunmen, not government workers, to help cushion the economic blow of lockdowns.
“Compared to the Mexican government,” said Buscaglia, “he was the least bad option.”
Oseguera’s death marks a significant blow to the CJNG, but it is unlikely to disrupt the flow of drugs into the U.S. or have a major impact on the cartel’s operations. The CJNG has a strong leadership structure and a network of loyal operatives, and it is likely that Oseguera’s successor will continue to pursue the cartel’s goals with violence and intimidation.
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