Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes is dead. The death of El Mencho sparked a bloody cartel revenge

Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, widely known by the alias El Mencho, was successfully eliminated as a result of a complex operation involving the Mexican Air Force and elite ground forces. The ruthless founder of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel had evaded justice for over a dozen years, repeatedly avoiding large-scale manhunts. The breakthrough in the international investigation came when intelligence identified and decided to track the wanted man's latest life partner. It was her regular travels for romantic rendezvous that led the strike units directly to the boss's unassuming, hard-to-reach hideout. The government thus managed to eliminate the strategist who, over the years, had built an organization of nearly 30,000 armed loyalists, tightly controlling Pacific maritime routes.

15 million dollars — was the bounty for the capture of the drug lord

The physical elimination of the leadership immediately triggered a mechanism of ruthless revenge. Armed paramilitary cartel units spilled into many cities, organizing violent roadblocks combined with burning construction equipment and city buses. The national presidency ordered the rapid redeployment of ten thousand soldiers to the most volatile points to restore public safety. partially true: Some European press repeated claims about CJNG's alleged budget of 50 billion dollars and a fleet of submarines, but financial experts prove these profits are lower, and the cartel primarily uses fast, radar-invisible speedboats. (Security analyses and U.S. State Department reports) Similarly, the alleged media-reported bounty pool of 80 million dollars for the heads of successors has been verified – in reality, U.S. bounties for individual players hover around much smaller sums.

Since 2006, when the then-Mexican authorities decided to frontally engage the armed forces in combating organized crime, the state has methodically implemented a strategy of eliminating the top echelons of mafia structures. Neutralizing top commanders has historically rarely brought a pacification of violence, usually instead initiating fierce intra-factional wars over abandoned smuggling branches.

The case takes on a specific dimension in the perspective of U.S. international policy. An Italian mafia researcher described the degree of cartel infiltration of state structures, noting: „hanno creato uno Stato nello Stato” (they have created a state within a state) — Roberto Saviano. The success of the strike largely alleviates previous tensions between the Washington administration and the government in Mexico City, building capital in relations with the Donald Trump administration. Now, however, Mexican intelligence services are intensively preparing for the expected outbreak of open rivalry. Both high-ranking notables within CJNG itself and rivals concentrated in the Sinaloa Cartel will seek to quickly seize strategic distribution channels, which will likely lead to a drastic escalation of violence in the coming months.

Perspektywy mediów: Liberal-leaning media warn against deepening cycles of violence caused by militarization on the streets, calling for action against systemic poverty. Conservative outlets emphasize the necessity of uncompromising cooperation between Mexican services and U.S. intelligence, praising the brutal strike against the mafia.