Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes: The life of a Jalisco cartel leader comes to a violent end after four decades of crime
The killing of Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes during surgery in Mexico’s Jalisco state may have sent “shock waves” through the country’s drug cartels, a former US official told CBC News on Monday.
Oseguera Cervantes, also known as “El Mencho,” led the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), notorious for drug trafficking and raids that challenged Mexican officials. The Jalisco cartel has been one of the most aggressive in its military attacks – including helicopters – and is a pioneer in launching explosives from drones and planting mines. According to Insight Crime, which tracks organized crime and corruption in Latin America, the CJNG operates in at least 28 of Mexico’s 32 states.
Defense Secretary Ricardo Trevilla said on Monday authorities tracked down one of Oseguera Cervantes’ lovers where he was hiding in Tapalpa.
Special forces from the Mexican Army and the National Guard moved in Sunday morning and came under heavy fire. Eight gunmen were killed there. Oseguera Cervantes and two security guards ran into a wooded area, where they were seriously injured when the fire broke out, Trevilla said. They were airlifted out, along with the wounded soldier, but the cartel leader and his bodyguards died en route to Mexico City, he said.
Until his death, Oseguera Cervantes, 59, was working in an invincible way, said Mike Vigil, the former head of the US Drug Enforcement Agency’s international operations.
“It will affect the flow of fentanyl and methamphetamine into the United States, at least temporarily,” Vigil said of the death of Oseguera Cervantes.
Mike Vigil, former head of international operations at the US Drug Enforcement Administration, says the Mexican military operation that killed the cartel leader known as ‘El Mencho’ will disrupt the flow of drugs into the US, at least temporarily, but his Jalisco New Generation Cartel is now using violence to show the authorities and its rivals that they are still strong.
Time spent in prison in the US
Oseguera Cervantes has been wanted by the US, in his current capacity, for at least ten years.
The US government last year offered a $15 million reward for information leading to his capture. Through its various branches, the Democratic and Republican administrations have also issued complaints about the capture of some leaders of the CJNG, which is believed to have been founded in 2009.
Oseguera Cervantes is believed to have been born in 1966 to a poor, rural family in the state of Michoacán. As a boy, he worked in the fields, and later left to seek his fortune in the US
He had been incarcerated in the US many times since 1986 in California as a misdemeanor. He had no legal basis to enter the country.
His most notable arrest in the US occurred in 1992, when Oseguera Cervantes and one of his several brothers were arrested in San Francisco after organizing a heroin transaction with the secret police.
Oseguera Cervantes served several years in prison and was deported to Mexico in the late 1990s.
Back in his homeland, Oseguera Cervantes became a police officer in Jalisco for an unspecified period of time, according to Insight. In Mexico, cartels often infiltrate local police agencies, as well as parts of government security services at the federal and state levels.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says there are no restrictions left in her country, a day after widespread revenge violence. On Sunday, cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, or ‘El Mencho,’ was killed in a military raid after his ex-girlfriend tipped off authorities, according to Mexico’s defense minister.
Oseguera Certanvates was part of the Milenio Cartel, the organization whose breakaway gave rise to the CJNG. In 2015, the US Treasury Department placed Osegeura Cervantes and the organization under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act.
Some drug companies in Mexico have found favor in the atmosphere of threat by giving local people gifts or food bags, and CNJG appears to be no exception. Mexico’s former president promised an investigation by the end of 2024 after videos were posted on social media from Coalcomán, Michoacán, showing the sign during a thank-you ceremony for Nemesio Oseguera for gifts.
Crime is a family affair
Oseguera Cervantes may have been more stupid than the average cartel leader, leading to frequent rumors on social media about his death over the years.
“Many of those close to them have never met him. He works with them mainly through relatives,” reported the Economist in 2020.
As for those relatives, many have been arrested on both sides of the US-Mexico border on various charges.
Reports indicate that El Mencho was legally separated from his wife of many years, Rosalinda González Valencia, when he was arrested in Mexico in 2021. González Valencia was reportedly released last year after serving time on corruption charges.
That same year, the daughter of El Mencho and Rosalinda, Jessica Johanna Oseguera González, was sentenced to 30 months in the US for financial crimes. He was born in the US, it is not clear if he still lives there or in Mexico.
Even worse, the cartel leader’s son and his son-in-law have been sentenced to significant sentences in US federal courts in 2025.
Rubén Oseguera González, known as El Menchito, was arrested by Mexican authorities and extradited to the US in 2020. The Justice Department said last year when he was sentenced to life in prison that El Menchito was responsible for five drug-related deaths and helped prevent the kidnapping of his father in 2015 by using a helicopter bomb to kill a Mexican gunman.
In terms of drug trafficking, the 36-year-old is accused of flooding the US with fake OxyContin pills that contained fentanyl.
Meanwhile, El Mencho’s son-in-law mentioned above was sentenced two months ago to 11 years in US prison; Cristian Fernando Gutierrez Ochoa, 37, was arrested in Southern California last year on charges of money laundering and drug trafficking.
Gutierrez Ochoa had faked his own death and fled to the US to avoid Mexican authorities after kidnapping two members of the Mexican Navy in 2021. According to the US Department of Justice, El Mencho told his colleagues that he killed Gutierrez Ochoa by lying, helping the man to flee to the US to be with one of the daughters of the cartel leader in California, Laisha, daughters of California.
During a press conference on Monday to address the security situation in Mexico where Puerto Vallarta, in the state of Jalisco, is under asylum, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said that as of 7 am, 26,305 Canadians in Mexico have registered with Global Affairs Canada, but the real number is much higher.
Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch said Monday that 25 members of the National Guard were killed in Jalisco in six separate attacks after El Mencho was killed. And Vigil told CBC News that the back-and-forth violence is likely to continue for several days.
Harfuch is well aware of the CJNG’s shameful actions. He was injured in 2020 while working as a police chief in Mexico City in a dramatic assassination attempt by the so-called cartel. In this incident, two of his bodyguards died.
The CJNG undoubtedly became the top threat on the radar of US law enforcement after the Sinaloa Cartel was shot down, and Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman and several top officials of that organization were captured or killed.
“Mexico needs to take advantage of this chaos within the company to go after its infrastructure; it is not right to kill or capture one of the drug lords,” said Vigil, who is also a writer. Steel Boxes: The Blood Alliance Cartel.
