Who Was Mexican Drug Lord El Mencho? Jalisco New Generation Cartel Sets Mexico on Fire

Name: Who Was Mexican Drug Lord El Mencho? Jalisco New Generation Cartel Sets Mexico on Fire
Uploaded: 2026-02-24T11:18:38+05:30
Duration: 3 min 57 s
Description: Who Was Mexican Drug Lord El Mencho? Jalisco New Generation Cartel Sets Mexico on Fire

The Mexican army killed the country’s most powerful cartel leader and one of the United States’ most wanted fugitives on Sunday, notching a major victory. In contrast, cartel members responded with a wave of violence across the country. The killing of Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes during an attempt to capture him in Jalisco state was the highest-profile blow against cartels since the recapture of former Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán a decade ago. Following Oseguera Cervantes' death, gunmen unleashed violence across the country. Cars burned out by cartel members blocked roads in nearly a dozen Mexican states and left smoke billowing into the air. People locked themselves in their homes in Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city and Jalisco's capital, and school was canceled Monday in several states as security forces were placed on alert all over the country. Even Guatemala reinforced security on its border with Mexico. The killing could give the government a leg up in its dealings with the U.S. Trump administration, which has been threatening tariffs or unilateral military action if Mexico does not show results in the fight against the cartels. Oseguera Cervantes, better known as “El Mencho,” was 59 years old and originally from the western state of Michoacan. His ties to organized crime went back at least three decades. In 1994, he was tried for trafficking heroin in the U.S. and sent to prison for three years. Upon returning to Mexico, he quickly rose through Mexico's drug trafficking underworld. Around 2009, he founded the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which became Mexico's fastest-growing criminal organization, moving cocaine, methamphetamines, fentanyl and migrants to the United States, and innovating in violence with the use of drones and improvised explosive devices. The cartel earned a reputation for brazen attacks on Mexican security forces, including downing a military helicopter in Jalisco in 2015 and attempting a spectacular, but unsuccessful, assassination of Mexico City Police Chief Omar García Harfuch, who is now Mexico's federal security secretary. It recruited aggressively, experimenting with new ways to reach potential members online.

Show Quick Read

Who Was Mexican Drug Lord El Mencho? Jalisco New Generation Cartel Sets Mexico on Fire