{"id":191341,"date":"2026-02-24T11:55:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T11:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/191341\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T11:55:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T11:55:23","slug":"el-mencho-sold-drugs-in-san-francisco-became-cartel-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/191341\/","title":{"rendered":"El Mencho sold drugs in San Francisco, became cartel boss"},"content":{"rendered":"

The vicious cartel boss El Mencho<\/a> cut his teeth as a small-time drug dealer in San Francisco \u2014 where he lived for years even after being deported in the 1980s and 1990s \u2014 before becoming a most-wanted narcotics kingpin at one of \u201cmost powerful and ruthless criminal organizations\u201d\u00a0in Mexico, according to drug enforcement authorities. <\/p>\n

El Mencho, born Nemesio Rub\u00e9n Oseguera Cervantes, illegally crossed the US-Mexico border multiple times during the 1980s under assumed identities like Rub\u00e9n \u00c1vila, Jos\u00e9 L\u00f3pez Prieto, Miguel Valadez, according to Univision<\/a>. <\/p>\n

El Mencho was arrested by San Francisco police in 1986 for possession of stolen property and a gun. SFPD<\/p>\n

He spent years as a drug dealer in San Francisco \u2014 where he returned even after being caught and deported in 1989, according to a Rolling Stone investigation<\/a>. <\/p>\n

He was arrested by San Francisco police in 1986 for possession of stolen property and a loaded gun. A booking photo shows a teenage 19-year-old Mencho wearing a hoodie and a blank expression.<\/p>\n

He was deported back to Mexico, where he\u2019d spent his early years working on his parents\u2019 avocado farm. <\/p>\n

But he managed to sneak back into the US several times before resettling in San Francisco \u2014 a city known for its lax attitude towards drug dealing \u2014\u00a0by 1989, per Rolling Stone. <\/p>\n

The drug kingpin entered the US illegally several times even after being deported, according to reports. U.S. District Court, District of Columbia<\/p>\n

El Mencho was one of the most wanted criminals in the world before his killing by Mexican authorities. U.S. Department of State<\/p>\n

That year, he was yet again arrested, this time for selling drugs, and deported.<\/p>\n

By 1992, he was back in the Bay Area and busted by federal authorities for selling heroin. <\/p>\n

He and his brother, Abraham, were reportedly wiretapped discussing a deal to sell five ounces of heroin for $9,500 at Imperial, a San Francisco bar. <\/p>\n

He was again deported after serving three years in prison, before washing up in a Jalisco town called Tomatl\u00e1n,\u00a0according to Rolling Stone. <\/p>\n

He fell in with the Milenio Cartel, which eventually splintered and fueled his rise in the bloodthirsty Jalisco New Generation Cartel<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

El Mencho was arrested for drug dealing in 1989 after he crossed the border again. SFPD<\/p>\n

Oseguera Cervantes\u2019s killing Sunday by Mexican military forces unleashed a wave of chaos<\/a> in at least 20 of Mexico\u2019s 31 states \u2014 leading the US State Department to issue stay-in-place orders in tourist hotspot Puerto Vallarta<\/a> and other parts of the country. <\/p>\n

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum appealed for peace on Monday in her first address to the press since \u201cEl Mencho\u2019s\u201d death in a gunfight between military special forces and his security. <\/p>\n

El Mencho\u2019s death sparked a wave of violence across much of Mexico. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing right now is to guarantee peace and security for the entire population of all of Mexico,\u201d she told reporters. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The vicious cartel boss El Mencho cut his teeth as a small-time drug dealer in San Francisco \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[57283,14,4182,2457,101,103,102,104,106,105,3586],"class_list":{"0":"post-191341","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-drug-cartels","9":"tag-immigration","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-mexico","12":"tag-san-francisco","13":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","14":"tag-san-francisco-news","15":"tag-sf","16":"tag-sf-headlines","17":"tag-sf-news","18":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}