{"id":307401,"date":"2026-02-24T08:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T08:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/307401\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T08:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T08:20:11","slug":"how-el-mencho-built-the-jalisco-cartel-into-a-global-crime-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/307401\/","title":{"rendered":"How \u2018El Mencho\u2019 built the Jalisco Cartel into a global crime empire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like many drug lords, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes<\/a> kept a low profile until he was killed by the Mexican army Sunday in the western state of Jalisco.<\/p>\n

Despite building one of Mexico\u2019s most powerful criminal organizations over two decades, the only widely known photographs of the man known as \u201cEl Mencho\u201d date to earlier arrests on robbery and drug charges in California in the 1980s and early 1990s.<\/p>\n

From Michoacan to California<\/p>\n

Oseguera Cervantes, 59, was originally from the farming community of El Naranjo in the neighboring state of Michoacan.<\/p>\n

He was born Rub\u00e9n Oseguera Cervantes but later added Nemesio to his name, the likely origin of his nickname \u201cEl Mencho,\u201d said Carlos Flores, a researcher at the Center for Research and Higher Education in Social Anthropology.<\/p>\n

As a young man, he migrated to the United States and settled in California, where he married into the \u201cLos Cuinis\u201d group led by his brother-in-law, Abigael Gonz\u00e1lez Valencia, also known as \u201cEl Cuini.\u201d<\/p>\n

Return to Mexico<\/p>\n

After serving three years in prison for heroin trafficking, Oseguera Cervantes was deported to Mexico. Back in Michoacan, he worked closely with Los Cuinis, who were linked to drug lord Armando Valencia Cornelio, known as \u201cEl Maradona,\u201d leader of the now-defunct Milenio cartel.<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, Oseguera Cervantes had contact with a significant organization that trafficked cocaine with Colombian suppliers and had ties to traffickers in Sinaloa state, Flores said. He began working as an armed enforcer for Valencia Cornelio.<\/p>\n

As conflicts intensified with rival groups in Michoacan, Valencia Cornelio and Gonz\u00e1lez Valencia moved operations to Jalisco and strengthened ties with traffickers in Sinaloa.<\/p>\n

The rise of ‘El Mencho’<\/p>\n

After Valencia Cornelio\u2019s arrest in 2003, Gonz\u00e1lez Valencia\u2019s group and Oseguera Cervantes began working for Ignacio \u201cNacho\u201d Coronel, a financial operator for the Sinaloa Cartel and associate of Joaqu\u00edn \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzm\u00e1n, who is serving a life sentence in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u00d3scar Nava Valencia later took control of the Milenio cartel, and the group became enforcers for the Sinaloa Cartel in its fight against the Zetas.<\/p>\n

The 2009 capture of Nava Valencia and the 2010 killing of Coronel by the Mexican military deepened divisions within the organization. A faction led by Oseguera Cervantes joined forces with Erik Valencia Salazar, known as \u201cEl 85,\u201d to form the Jalisco New Generation Cartel around 2009.<\/p>\n

Rapid expansion<\/p>\n

In less than two decades, Oseguera Cervantes built a powerful criminal organization with thousands of members. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the cartel operates in 21 of Mexico\u2019s 32 states. Mexican authorities say it has a presence in 36 countries.<\/p>\n

Flores attributed the group\u2019s rapid growth in part to security policies under former President Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto that weakened the Sinaloa Cartel, including the final capture and extradition of Guzm\u00e1n to the United States. That shift created space for the Jalisco cartel to expand.<\/p>\n

The cartel\u2019s rise alarmed U.S. authorities. In May 2016, Oseguera Cervantes was added to the most wanted list. In 2018, the U.S. State Department offered a $10 million reward for information leading to his arrest, later increasing it to $15 million in 2024. Last year, President Donald Trump designated the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and five other Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.<\/p>\n

Flores said that despite having only a secondary education, Oseguera Cervantes had the skill and intelligence to build an organization that secured support from local and federal officials and diversified beyond drug trafficking into extortion, real estate, fuel theft and other ventures.<\/p>\n

As his death underscored, Flores said, he also had \u201ca capacity for violent action\u201d that helped him build his criminal empire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like many drug lords, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes kept a low profile until he was killed by the Mexican…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-307401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}