Who was El Mencho, the former police officer who co-founded an ultraviolent cartel in Mexico? | Mexico
Drug lord “El Mencho,” killed by Mexican special forces on Sunday, was the co-founder and leader of a gang that has become the country’s most powerful criminal organization in recent years: the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
Although less internationally famous than the Sinaloa cartel of now-imprisoned Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the CJNG is a household name in Mexico, known for its extreme displays of violence and large, military-style arsenal.
The cartel, headquartered in the state of Jalisco, has been one of the most aggressive in its attacks on the military, including from helicopters, and has been a pioneer in launching explosives from drones and planting mines. Efforts to capture El Mencho, a 59-year-old former police officer whose real name is Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, ended badly in 2015 when cartel gang members hit an army helicopter with a rocket launcher.
In 2020, he carried out a brazen assassination attempt with grenades and high-powered rifles in the heart of Mexico City against the then head of the capital’s police force and now the federal security minister.
Security expert Eduardo Guerrero said in 2021 that authorities north and south of the US border considered the group a national security threat. “They have huge amounts of money, the latest generation of weapons, military-style paramilitary groups and vehicles… [Mexican] government – especially in small and medium-sized cities where a platoon of 50 cartel agents could clearly defeat any local police force.”
The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) considers the cartel to be as powerful as the Sinaloa cartel, which has a presence in all 50 US states. It is one of the main suppliers of cocaine to the US market and, like the Sinaloa cartel, earns billions of dollars from fentanyl and methamphetamine production. However, Sinaloa was weakened by internal conflict following the loss of its leaders, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Guzmán, both of whom were in US custody.
El Mancho was originally from Aguililla in the neighboring state of Michoacan. He had been significantly involved in drug trafficking activities since the 1990s. When he was younger, he immigrated to the United States, where he was convicted in the U.S. district court for the Northern District of California in 1994 of conspiracy to distribute heroin and served nearly three years in prison.
After his release, he returned to Mexico and resumed drug trafficking under the name of drug lord Ignacio Coronel Villareal, alias “Nacho Coronel”. After Villareal’s death, El Mencho and Erik Valencia Salazar, alias “El 85”, founded CJNG around 2007.
They initially worked for the Sinaloa cartel but eventually split, and the two cartels fought for territory across Mexico for years.
A rumor from the underworld suggests that the split was caused when a drug trafficker from Guadalajara spilled a glass of hibiscus tea on his rival during a meeting in the east of the city. The seemingly ordinary event is said to have led to a bloody and surprising series of betrayals, gunfights and massacres.
Unlike El Chapo, who sought the help of Sean Penn to turn his criminal life into a Hollywood blockbuster, El Mencho prefers the shadows. There are very few photographs of him.
El Mencho has been indicted several times in the United States district court for the District of Columbia since 2017.
The most recent indictment, filed on April 5, 2022, charged him with conspiracy and distribution of controlled substances (methamphetamine, cocaine, and fentanyl) for the purpose of illegal importation into the United States and use of a firearm during and in connection with drug trafficking crimes. El Mencho was also charged with running an ongoing criminal enterprise under the Drug Lord Enforcement Act.
via Associated Press
