The Mexican military on Sunday confirmed the death of Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) leader Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, sparking a wave of cartel violence in western cities such as Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta.
Videos circulating on social media showed buses, shops and vehicles burning, and authorities identified 250 roadblocks across 20 states on Sunday. Most of the violence was concentrated in Jalisco, the cartel’s stronghold and the state where ‘El Mencho’ was killed.
Tourists were evacuated at their resorts for several hours and flights to Guadalajara and the popular tourist destination Puerto Vallarta were canceled Sunday.
On Monday, President Claudia Sheinbaum addressed Mencho’s killing and the violence that followed, saying all obstacles had been lifted.
“It’s a little quieter today. The government, the military and the security cabinet are present and there’s a lot of coordination. So we can be confident that we’re maintaining peace and security,” Sheinbaum said at a morning press briefing.
A pattern of violent backlash following high-profile killings or captures.
Mexican drug cartels sometimes resort to violence against the public after killing or arresting high-ranking cartel members.
In 2019, Sinaloa’s capital Culiacan erupted in violence following an operation to arrest Ovidio Guzman-Lopez, the son of jailed Sinaloa cartel co-founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera. At the time, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador released the cartel leaders to avoid bloodshed. The younger Guzman was arrested again in 2023 and extradited to the United States.
Read more: Culiacan families say 140 people have gone missing in violent attacks since Ovidio Guzman’s arrest.
Elijah Glantz, a researcher at the Organized Crime and Policing Team at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense think tank, said: Latin America Report Sunday’s “immediate condemnation” occurred for two reasons.
The first is “to show people internally, in terms of rivals or internal opportunist groups, that the CJNG is still very powerful and still has the ability to do damage. And the same goes for the government. If we continue down this path of trying to go after the leaders, there will be political, economic and human costs to operating,” Glantz said.
The strategy of removing the CJNG leader, taken as the Trump administration pressures Sheinbaum to fight drug cartels, has drawn criticism from some analysts who worry it could plunge Mexico back into a bloody drug war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.
Read more: Mexico’s ‘war on drugs’ officially ends
Alexander Aviña, an associate professor of Latin American history at Arizona State University, wrote about
Chris Dalby, director of World of Crime, which publishes reports on drug cartels, said:
“The ‘boss strategy’ has finally resulted in the greatest damage in a decade, but for Mexico this is not a victory. It is the beginning of a division that could shatter all records of violence.”
But Trump administration officials praised the Mexican military’s actions. “This operation highlights the stark reality that the criminal organizations that poison our people and threaten our nation must be held accountable,” said U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson.
According to Glantz, the cartels’ efforts to use violence to force a period of “détente” between themselves and the Mexican state have worked in the past, but it is unclear how Sheinbaum will react, given Trump’s preference for a kingpin strategy.
“This is the outcome that Donald Trump likes,” Glanz said. “It has nothing to do with reducing the amount of drugs or reducing the crime rate in Mexico, it’s just about getting a big name and being very successful.”
Last February, the United States designated CJNG a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), and Trump repeatedly threatened attacks on the cartel inside Mexican territory, a warning that Sheinbaum rejected.
Still, the attack on El Mencho, in which more than 70 cartel members and security forces were killed, could be “a political victory for Sheinbaum in light of the two countries’ relationship with President Donald Trump,” said David Mora, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group. Latin America Report.
He said that through this operation, “Sheinbaum regained sovereignty and the ability for Mexico to do things on its own (handling attacks on drug cartels), of course with the cooperation of the United States.”
But Glantz believes there is still pressure on Sheinbaum to produce more of these results. “The problem is that if she forces herself to continue to produce those results and these activities, the CJNG may be more incentivized to do greater political damage,” he added.
Featured image: Screenshot of the U.S. State Department award poster for El Mencho.
Featured image source: U.S. Department of State
