Today in Tapalpa, Jalisco, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, aka El Mencho, was detained and then died on the flight transporting him to Mexico City.
The CJNG is arguably the most powerful cartel in Mexico and noted for its brutality. (For example, they operated the recruitment and extermination center in Teuchitlán, Jalisco, discovered by searching families last year.) In response to today's events, narcoblockades have gone up in the states of Jalisco, Michoacán, Colima, Guerrero, Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Nayarit, Zacatecas, and Tamaulipas. Federal and state authorities are urging people in Michoacán and Jalisco to shelter in place.
Killing cartel leaders has been a tried and true failure of the "war on organized crime" since 2006, and has contributed to the wave of violence unleashed across Mexico these past twenty years. When a cartel boss is taken out, it more often than not leads to internal disputes for power, the splintering of cartels, and violence as factions fight for control and territory. (Such as has been happening in Sinaloa within the Sinaloa Cartel since mid-2024.) Everyday people, involved and not, suffer the consequences.
It is convenient for the Mexican government (and likely others) that El Mencho happened to be wounded during the raid and died in transport as a result (according to official accounts). There is absolutely zero chance that the CJNG could have reached the international heights it is at without sustained government and corporate collaboration. On the other hand, someone(s) clearly didn't do their job by failing to let him know about the raid, and as such, there are likely to be repercussions beyond today's narcoblockades.
Mexican officials have acknowledged this raid was made possible by intelligence provided by the United States, which raises questions about why this raid happened now and under what forms of external pressure.
In sum, while leaders in the U.S. and Mexico may trumpet this as a victory in the drug war, and while El Mencho was a truly cruel human being, the fallout of his death will land on the shoulders of Mexico's civilian population, same as ever, while the cartels and the elites play their capitalist games for wealth and power in a battleground called Mexico littered with tens of thousands of dead and disappeared.
https://aristeguinoticias.com/2202/mexico/nemesio-oseguera-el-mencho-murio-cuando-era-trasladado-por-agentes-federales/
#Mexico #Jalisco
Leo 🇲🇽
