news@tvnz.co.nz<\/a><\/p>\nHere’s what to know.<\/p>\n
\u2018El Mencho\u2019 was the leader of a fast-growing criminal group<\/p>\n
Oseguera Cervantes, better known as \u201cEl Mencho,\u201d was 59 years old and originally from the western state of Michoacan. His ties to organised crime went back at least three decades.<\/p>\n
In 1994, he was tried for trafficking heroin in the US and sent to prison for three years. <\/p>\n
Upon returning to Mexico, he quickly rose through Mexico’s drug trafficking underworld.<\/p>\n
Around 2009, he founded the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which became Mexico’s fastest-growing criminal organisation, moving cocaine, methamphetamines, fentanyl and migrants to the United States, and using violence with the use of drones and improvised explosive devices.<\/p>\n
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 Garc\u00eda Harfuch, who is now Mexico’s federal security secretary.<\/p>\n
It recruited aggressively, experimenting with new ways to reach potential members online, and generated revenue through fuel theft, extortion and timeshare fraud, among other activities.<\/p>\n
Oseguera Cervantes died in a battle with troops sent to capture him<\/p>\n
Oseguera Cervantes was killed during an attempt to capture him, as his followers attempted to fight off Mexican troops.<\/p>\n
Mexico’s Defence Secretary Ricardo Trevilla said Monday that the army and National Guard launched an operation in the southern part of Jalisco state to capture Oseguera Cervantes, involving the Mexican air force and special forces.<\/p>\n
Intelligence gathered about one of Oseguera Cervantes’ romantic partners led them to his hideout, he said.<\/p>\n
The cartel counterattacked, and in the ensuing confrontation, federal forces killed eight members of the criminal group. Oseguera Cervantes and two of his bodyguards were wounded and died later during transfer by air to Mexico City, Trevilla said.<\/p>\n
Rocket launchers capable of shooting down aircraft and destroying armoured vehicles were seized at the scene.<\/p>\n
Mexico is keen to show Trump results in the fight against cartels<\/p>\n
Oseguera Cervantes’ death will help Mexico’s government show results to the US, which is pressuring its neighbour to pursue drug cartels more aggressively.<\/p>\n
Both countries said intelligence cooperation helped lead to Sunday’s operation.<\/p>\n
Oseguera Cervantes was facing multiple indictments in the United States and the US State Department had offered a US$15 million reward for information leading to his arrest. <\/p>\n
The Trump administration designated his cartel and others foreign terrorist organisations a year ago.<\/p>\n
US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, who was US ambassador to Mexico during the first Trump administration, applauded the operation via X, writing: \u201cThe good guys are stronger than the bad guys. Congratulations to the forces of law and order in the great Mexican nation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the DEA, said Mexico had sent \u201ca strong message to Donald Trump’s administration that they are fighting aggressively and effectively\u201d against the most powerful cartels. <\/p>\n
He added that \u201cthe majority of the information came from the Mexican armed forces and all credit goes to Mexico\u201d.<\/p>\n
Cartel leader’s death leaves a power vacuum<\/p>\n
It’s not clear who will succeed Oseguera Cervantes, or if any one person can.<\/p>\n
The Jalisco cartel has a presence in at least 21 of Mexico’s 32 states and is active in almost all of the United States, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration. <\/p>\n
But it is also a global organisation and the loss of its leader could be felt well beyond Mexico.<\/p>\n
\u201cEl Mencho controlled everything, he was like a country’s dictator,\u201d Vigil said.<\/p>\n
His absence could slow the cartel’s rapid growth and expansion and leave it initially weakened against the Sinaloa cartel on several fronts where they or their proxies are fighting. <\/p>\n
The Sinaloa is locked in its own internal power struggle, however, between the sons of \u201cEl Chapo\u201d and the faction loyal to Ismael \u201cEl Mayo\u201d Zambada, who is in US custody.<\/p>\n
Vigil said Mexico should seize the moment to launch \u201can effective frontal assault based on intelligence\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a big opportunity for Mexico and the United States if they work together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Security analyst David Saucedo said that if relatives of Oseguera Cervantes take control of the cartel, the violence seen Sunday could continue. <\/p>\n
If others take power, they could be more willing to turn the page and continue operations.<\/p>\n
The greatest fear would be that the cartel turns to indiscriminate violence. <\/p>\n
They could decide to \u201claunch narcoterrorism attacks … and generate a scenario similar to what Colombia lived in the 1990s,\u201d a full-on attack against the government \u201ccar bombs, assassinations and attacks on aircraft\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mexican army killed the country\u2019s most powerful cartel leader and one of the United States\u2019 most wanted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[67,42,43,64,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-299116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}