Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho,” is the founder and leader of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG), and was at the forefront of transforming what was once a fledgling criminal faction into one of the most fearsome criminal groups in Mexico today. In the process, he has become one of Mexico’s most wanted criminals, for whom US authorities are offering a $15 million reward.
History
El Mencho is originally from the Tierra Caliente region in the western state of Michoacan. According to an April 2015 press release from the US Treasury Department, El Mencho has been deeply involved in drug trafficking activities since the 1990s. In 1994, the US District Court for the Northern District of California sentenced him to three years in prison for conspiracy to distribute heroin. After his release, he returned to Mexico, where he served as a police officer in Cabo Corrientes and Tomatlan in the state of Jalisco. However, he eventually left the police force to continue his drug trafficking activities and join the Milenio Cartel.
After working in a group of hitmen that protected Armando Valencia Cornelio, alias “El Maradona,” El Mencho joined a block of the Milenio Cartel allied with Ignacio Coronel Villareal, alias “Nacho Coronel,” a Sinaloa Cartel capo. This group trafficked drugs, managed finances, and served as killers for the Sinaloa Cartel in the states of Jalisco and Colima.
However, by 2010, following the death of Nacho Coronel and the capture of the leader of the Milenio Cartel, Oscar Orlando Nava Valencia, alias “El Lobo,” the Milenio Cartel split into two factions: “Los Torcidos” and “La Resistencia.” These two divisions began a battle for control of drug trafficking in Jalisco, and Los Torcidos became what is now the CJNG, with El Mencho as its leader.
Under El Mencho’s command, the CJNG began to expand and consolidate its control over drug trafficking in Jalisco and neighboring states, taking on rival cartels the Zetas and the Knights Templar. In August 2012, despite some reports that he had been captured, El Mencho evaded an operation carried out by Mexican security forces against the CJNG in Guadalajara. In order to impede police efforts and give its members time to flee, the cartel formed dozens of barricades, setting fire to vehicles on major roads throughout the city.
El Mencho has continued to elude the authorities, although the CJNG’s growing power and violent tactics have resulted in security forces and governments paying greater attention to the group and exerting more pressure on it.
Because he maintains a low profile and has not been identified by authorities for several years, rumors of his death have surfaced. For example, in February 2022, various reports in the Mexican press stated that El Mencho had been killed in a CJNG confrontation with some of his rivals. Another rumor, spread by CJNG enemies on scrawled messages left around Guadalajara, stated that El Mencho had died of kidney failure in a hospital in that city.
There have also been unsupported and unconfirmed reports that El Mencho has health problems. In July 2020, for example, a medical center was reportedly built in rural Jalisco so that he could be treated for a kidney problem that has plagued him for some time.
Uncertainty about his health has begun to affect the group. The Mezcales, a splinter faction of the CJNG in Colima, announced in early 2022 that they were terminating their allegiance to the cartel as El Mencho was dead. The Mexican government has investigated these claims but hasn’t found any convincing evidence.
Meanwhile, US authorities believe he is still alive, and in December 2024 they increased the reward they were offering for information leading to his capture to $15 million.
Criminal Activities
As head of the CJNG, El Mencho allegedly directs the group’s criminal operations in the states of Jalisco, Colima, Michoacan, Guanajuato, Veracruz, and Chiapas, where the cartel is a major player in the trafficking of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and fentanyl, as well as oil theft, human trafficking, extortion, and migrant smuggling.
El Mencho is also believed to have ordered the assassination of several Mexican politicians. In March 2013, a suspect in the murder of Jalisco tourism secretary Jesus Gallegos Alvarez said El Mencho had authorized the attack because he suspected the official was collaborating with the Knights Templar. The CJNG is also believed to have been behind the murder of Congressman Gabriel Gomez Michel in September 2014. Although the motive is unknown, Gómez Michel had been mayor of El Grullo, a CJNG stronghold in Jalisco state, where El Mencho allegedly moves freely.
Geography
The CJNG has a presence in at least 28 Mexican states, including Mexico City, although its operations bases are in Jalisco, Colima, and Michoacan.
The criminal group uses Pacific routes to traffic drugs and import cocaine from Colombia, as well as precursor chemicals from China, through the port of Manzanillo in the state of Colima. El Mencho has contacts in Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, as well as throughout Central America and the United States.
He allegedly has his own personal base of operations in the rural areas of southern Jalisco.
Allies and Enemies
A crucial ally for the CJNG has been Los Cuinis, a family clan led by Abigael Gonzalez Valencia, the brother of El Mencho’s wife, Rosalinda. Los Cuinis set up operations throughout Latin America to help launder the CJNG’s colossal profits, including in Argentina and Uruguay. However, since they were indicted by the United States government in 2015, most of the Gonzalez Valencia family has been arrested. Los Cuinis have ceased to exist as an independent unit, and most of their remaining financial plans are believed to have been absorbed by the CJNG.
The CJNG’s main enemies were originally the Zetas and the Knights Templar, and El Mencho’s organization began a series of wars with the latter in Michoacan. El Mencho was crucial in the CJNG’s early days and was responsible for much of its early strategic expansion.
But as the group expanded its control over much of Mexico’s criminal landscape, its list of enemies grew. Its main enemy now is the Sinaloa Cartel, with which it disputes territorial control for various drug trafficking routes in central and northern Mexico. Recently, it has also started a dispute with the Sinaloan organization in the state of Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala, that is around control of migrant smuggling.
Other regional disputes involve the Northeast Cartel (CDN) in Tamaulipas, the Old School Zetas in Veracruz, and the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel in Guanajuato, although the latter rival’s power has been largely crushed.
The group is also involved in several conflicts in the southwestern state of Michoacan. The state contains the vital port of Lazaro Cardenas, as well as being a crucial area for drug production and trafficking. It also hosts other criminal economies such as extortion of avocado production and other businesses. This has made it a priority for the CJNG, and it is also the state where El Mencho was born. However, unlike in the rest of Mexico, the group has not been able to impose its criminal will here as it has come up against well-organized and entrenched local groups determined to keep the cartels on the sidelines.
The main opposition comes from Carteles Unidos ( CU), a coalition of criminal gangs, including the Tepalcatepec Cartel and Los Viagras. No side has emerged victorious in this war, but it has led to the blockade of areas of Tierra Caliente in Michoacán, especially the municipality of Aguililla. Thousands of people have fled the fighting, and Mexican authorities periodically send in their forces to regain some semblance of control.
The group has also been willing to make temporary alliances to expand its geographic reach. For example, in the state of Baja California allegedly allied with the remnants of the Tijuana Cartel, later calling itself the Tijuana Cartel – New Generation. In Ciudad Juarez, a key border crossing into the United States, the group was allegedly bolstered by an alliance with the New Juarez Cartel. However, this did not help it establish a foothold in the city.
Prospects
El Mencho is indicted in a US District Court in the District of Columbia on charges of criminal association, cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking, and use of weapons.
For several years, he has maintained a low profile, which has allowed him to evade authorities despite the aggressive expansion of the CJNG and pressure on Mexico from the US to bring him in.
However, several of his family members are currently in custody, which could help authorities to close in on him.
In November 2024, US agents arrested his son-in-law, Cristian Gutiérrez-Ochoa, in California. Seven months earlier, Mexican authorities arrested his brother Abraham Oseguera in Jalisco. Another of his brothers, Antonio Oseguera, was also captured in Mexico in 2022.
His son Ruben Oseguera is currently serving a sentence in the United States, having been extradited in 2020. Finally, his wife, Rosalinda González Valencia, was arrested in Mexico on money laundering charges in November 2021.