Mexico kills Nemesio Oseguera, ‘El Mencho,’ the world’s most wanted drug lord

The Mexican military killed Rubén Nemesio Oseguera, alias “El Mencho,” the most wanted and dangerous drug trafficker in the world, this weekend in the state of Jalisco, in central Mexico, according to official sources who confirmed the information to EL PAÍS. The leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), the country’s most significant criminal group, Oseguera headed a criminal enterprise with countless tentacles — more powerful than any other, violent and aggressive in its business practices, and primarily linked to drug trafficking. Although authorities have not yet provided many details, El Mencho was brought down in an operation in the mountains of Jalisco, where he had operated freely for decades, protected by his criminal ranks.

The fall of El Mencho, also a priority target for the United States, is the biggest blow to drug trafficking in recent history. In terms of importance and impact, his death can only be compared to the capture of Ismael “El Mayo " Zambada, former leader of the now defunct Sinaloa Cartel, in July 2024. Like Joaquín “El Chapo " Guzmán and Zambada before him, El Mencho had built an aura of mystery around himself, drawing on the overwhelming power of the CJNG and his limited media presence: all photos of him were decades old.

Oseguera’s death has sparked blockades by his group in several states in central Mexico — Michoacán and Jalisco, where he had his stronghold, but also Tamaulipas, Colima, and Guanajuato, among others. His removal from the criminal playing field places Mexico in uncharted territory, with the World Cup just around the corner and the clear ability of criminal groups to sow chaos in cities and along major highways. The countdown now begins for the expected battle over his succession. Part of the criminal organization’s strength in recent years has rested on the survival of its top operatives, with the exception of Abimael González, alias “El Cuini,” who was extradited to the United States a few months ago.

Oseguera was the last of a generation of drug traffickers who, like El Chapo Guzmán, El Mayo Zambada, and Ignacio Coronel, had begun their criminal careers in the last century, when the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) still dominated Mexico, from the smallest town to the chambers of representatives, and crime bowed to official power. Over the years, things changed. The PRI lost power, and the old alliances between crime and the state disappeared; criminal groups fragmented and new ones emerged, creating and nurturing powerful armed wings, while Mexico was flooded with weapons from the U.S. It was in these waters that El Mencho, the most skilled of them all, fished.

None of them remain free. El Chapo and El Mayo, founding leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, were captured and are serving sentences in U.S. Prisons, from which they are unlikely ever to be released. Now, El Mencho has died in the same region that saw him rise.

Although he was born and raised in Michoacán, between Apatzingán and Aguililla — where he first entered the criminal underworld — he had recently been hiding in Jalisco, his adopted state, in the rugged region between Guadalajara, host city for several World Cup matches, and Puerto Vallarta, the jewel of the Pacific coast. Sources within the federal security cabinet had located him near Atequiza, a designated “Pueblo Mágico” in Jalisco.

Born on July 17, 1966, in the town of Naranjo de Chila, El Mencho was the son of farmers who emigrated to California, where one of the few photos of him was taken: young, with curly hair and a defiant look. The other, better-known photo, showing him with a calm expression and a mustache, is the one that has always been used to try to identify the man who created a criminal empire, first in small-scale drug dealing, then as a hitman and local boss, until he became a major international drug trafficker. Oseguera was the most sought-after target in the battle against drug trafficking after the fall of the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, El Chapo Guzmán and El Mayo Zambada, and the extradition to the United States of another major drug lord, Rafael Caro Quintero.

Pending further details about the operation, the fall of El Mencho represents a victory for the security strategy of President Claudia Sheinbaum, led by her Security Secretary, Omar García Harfuch, at one of the most critical moments of her administration, with violence on the rise in places such as Sinaloa and Michoacán.

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