MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican military killed the nation’s strongest cartel chief and one of many United States’ most wished fugitives on Sunday, notching a serious victory whereas cartel members responded with a wave violence throughout the nation.
The killing of Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes throughout an try and seize him in Jalisco state was the highest-profile blow in opposition to cartels because the recapture of former Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán a decade in the past.
Following Oseguera Cervantes’ demise, gunmen unleashed violence throughout the nation. Cars burned out by cartel members blocked roads in practically a dozen Mexican states and left smoke billowing into the air. Individuals locked themselves of their houses in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest metropolis and Jalisco’s capital, and college was canceled Monday in a number of states as safety forces have been positioned on alert everywhere in the nation. Even Guatemala bolstered safety on its border with Mexico.
The killing might give the federal government a leg up in its dealings with the U.S. Trump administration, which has been threatening tariffs or unilateral military action if Mexico doesn’t present ends in the struggle in opposition to the cartels.
However the long-term impact on Mexico’s safety panorama stays unclear.
Right here’s what to know:
‘El Mencho’ was the chief of a fast-growing legal group
Oseguera Cervantes, higher referred to as “El Mencho,” was 59 years outdated and initially from the western state of Michoacan. His ties to organized crime went again no less than three a long time.
In 1994, he was tried for trafficking heroin within the U.S. and despatched to jail for 3 years. Upon returning to Mexico, he shortly rose by way of Mexico’s drug trafficking underworld.
Round 2009, he based the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which turned Mexico’s fastest-growing legal group, transferring cocaine, methamphetamines, fentanyl and migrants to america, and innovating in violence with the usage of drones and improvised explosive units.
The cartel earned a fame for brazen assaults on Mexican safety forces, together with downing a military helicopter in Jalisco in 2015 and making an attempt a spectacular, but unsuccessful, assassination of Mexico Metropolis Police Chief Omar García Harfuch, who’s now Mexico’s federal safety secretary.
It recruited aggressively, experimenting with new ways to reach potential members online.
Mexico is eager to indicate Trump ends in the struggle in opposition to cartels
Oseguera Cervantes’ will assist Mexico’s authorities present outcomes to the U.S., which is pressuring its neighbor to pursue drug cartels extra aggressively. Each nations stated intelligence collaboration helped result in Sunday’s operation.
Oseguera Cervantes was going through a number of indictments in america and the U.S. State Division had provided a $15 million reward for info resulting in his arrest. The Trump administration designated his cartel and others overseas terrorist organizations a 12 months in the past.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, who was U.S. ambassador to Mexico in the course of the first Trump administration, applauded the operation by way of X, writing “The nice guys are stronger than the unhealthy guys. Congratulations to the forces of legislation and order within the nice Mexican nation.”
Mike Vigil, former chief of worldwide operations for the DEA, stated Mexico had despatched a “a powerful message to Donald Trump’s administration that they’re preventing aggressively and successfully” in opposition to essentially the most highly effective cartels. He added that “nearly all of the knowledge got here from the Mexican armed forces and all credit score goes to Mexico.”
Cartel chief’s demise leaves an influence vacuum
It’s not clear who will succeed Oseguera Cervantes, or if anybody individual can.
The Jalisco cartel has a presence in no less than 21 of Mexico’s 32 states and is energetic in virtually the entire United States, based on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. However it is usually a worldwide group and the lack of its chief might be felt nicely past Mexico.
“El Mencho managed all the things, he was like a rustic’s dictator,” Vigil stated.
His absence might sluggish the cartel’s speedy development and growth and depart it initially weakened in opposition to the Sinaloa cartel on a number of fronts the place they or their proxies are preventing. The Sinaloa is locked in its personal internal power struggle, nonetheless, between the sons of “El Chapo” and the faction loyal to Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who’s in U.S. custody.
Vigil stated Mexico ought to seize the second to launch “an efficient frontal assault primarily based on intelligence.”
“It is a huge alternative for Mexico and america in the event that they work collectively,” he stated.
Safety analyst David Saucedo stated that if kinfolk of Oseguera Cervantes take management of the cartel, the violence seen Sunday might proceed. If others take energy, they might be extra prepared to show the web page and proceed operations.
The best worry can be that the cartel turns to indiscriminate violence. They might resolve to “launch narcoterrorism assaults … and generate a state of affairs just like what Colombia lived within the Nineteen Nineties,” a full on assault in opposition to the federal government “automotive bombs, assassinations and assaults on plane.”