Deaths, charred landmarks, burned cars and damaged buildings. Federal troops stand guard outside the General Prosecutor’s headquarters in Mexico City. In the past three days, the usually peaceful landscape of Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city and Jalisco’s capital, has turned into one of violent chaos.
On Sunday, Feb. 22, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Ruben Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as “El Mencho”, was killed in an operation by the Mexican special forces. He was what many consider to be Mexico’s most powerful cartel leader.
El Mencho has had an extensive history of violence long before establishing the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación, or CJNG. At one point, he acted as the chief enforcer for the Milenio Cartel, serving as its lead hitman. He later went on to manage security operations and oversee acts of violence for the well-known Sinaloa Cartel, whose former leader, Joaquín Guzmán, is currently serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.
CJNG control extended from methamphetamine production, to fentanyl trafficking into the U.S and to cocaine routes from South America.
El Mencho formed the notorious organization in 2009 after Mexico’s military killed Ignacio Coronel Villarreal, a top figure of the Cártel de Sinaloa who controlled operations in Jalisco.
El Mencho had been part of the Cártel del Milenio, which splintered after arrests and leadership losses. He gathered loyal gunmen from that group, broke away, and launched a faction calling itself “Mata Zetas” in 2011, claiming to fight Los Zetas.
Through coordinated attacks, public threats and rapid recruitment, he consolidated control of Jalisco and expanded into methamphetamine production and international trafficking. Within a few years, CJNG became a dominant cartel.
As the news of El Mencho’s death quickly spread around Mexico, members of his cartel initiated attacks in many towns and cities where the CJGN is active, resulting in the ongoing chaos that Guadalajara is currently in.
Although the Jalisco cartel has had a presence in Mexico for many years, the response to El Mencho’s death comes at an especially delicate time.
“President Claudia Sheinbaum is in the first year of her administration. The World Cup is only a few months away and is going to have games played in Guadalajara,” said Chris Dalby, senior analyst for Dyami Security Intelligence, in an interview with CNN.
Currently, the cartel is a threat to security, and the state of Jalisco has been assigned a level 3 travel advisory due to battles between organized crime groups for control of drug trafficking routes and rural areas of the state, along with the constant threat of armed clashes between security forces and crime groups.
According to the U.S Embassy and Consulates of Mexico, U.S. government staff in Guadalajara (Jalisco), Puerto Vallarta (Jalisco/Nayarit), Ciudad Guzman (Jalisco), Tijuana (Baja California), Chiapas and Michoacan are sheltering in place until all blockades are cleared.
The U.S State Department urges American citizens to continue sheltering in place in certain areas as other parts of the country return to “normal.” The department’s crisis hotline for US citizens fielded hundreds of calls after several carriers suspended flights to Puerto Vallarta, a city impacted by Guadalajara’s ongoing violence.
