What to know about Jalisco cartel killing: Kingpin busted after authorities tracked his mistress
· Toronto Sun
Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes was killed after Mexican intelligence officers tracked down one of his lovers to a secluded resort compound, officials said Monday.
Defence Secretary Ricardo Trevilla said agents identified a man close to a girlfriend of the late Oseguera, boss of the New Generation Jalisco Cartel, before Sunday’s raid. The woman was taken to Tapalpa, a mountainside retreat in Mexico’s Jalisco State on the west coast, where Oseguera and his gang were located, he said.
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Mexico deployed special forces shortly after the girlfriend left the resort to infiltrate the site and take out Oseguera and his men. Troops got inside the compound and were fired upon by Oseguera’s gunmen. A firefight ensued, leading to a chase in nearby woods that resulted in the death of four cartel members.
Three others were critically injured and died en route to a hospital in Mexico City, including Oseguera himself.
Cartel offered bounties on soldiers: Officials
In a different location in Jalisco, soldiers also killed another high-ranking cartel member, who Trevilla said was coordinating violence and offering more than $1,000 for every soldier killed.
The dead included 25 members of the Mexican National Guard who were killed in six separate attacks, Security Secretary Omar Garcia Harfuch said.
Harfuch said some 30 criminal suspects were killed in Jalisco, and four others were killed in the neighboring state of Michoacan. Also killed were a prison guard and an agent from the state prosecutor’s office.
Who was ‘El Mencho?’
Oseguera Cervantes was born on July 17, 1966 in Naranjo de Chila to poor avocado farmers, Rolling Ston e reported in 2017. He dropped out of school in Grade 5 to help his family on the farm, switching to a role guarding marijuana crops by age 14. Eventually, he moved to California, where his criminal activity began.
He has been involved in drug trafficking since the 1990s, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He served nearly three years in an American prison for conspiracy to distribute heroin. He then returned to Mexico in 1997.
Oseguera Cervantes worked as a police officer in Jalisco state before returning to crime, according to U.S.-based think tank InSight Crime. He became involved in the Milenio Cartel in Guadalajara, per Rolling Stone . Milenio was linked to the Sinaloa Cartel, whose leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was known for extreme, brutal violence. Guzman was extradited to the U.S. and sentenced to life in prison in 2019 after his capture.
Oseguera Cervantes ran a network of assassins for the Milenio Cartel, and then rose to power following a slew of arrests of cartel leaders. He formed CJNG in 2009, funding and growing it with fellow cartel boss Abigael Gonzalez-Valencia. The pair cemented their alliance when Oseguera Cervantes married Gonzalez-Valencia’s sister.
Big money, brutal violence
The cartel has also trafficked fentanyl into the U.S. and has been “assessed to have the highest cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine trafficking capacity in Mexico.” Before his death, there was a $15-million reward for Oseguera Cervantes’ arrest or conviction, whose CJNG killed law enforcement and cartel rivals alike.
In 2011, in Veracruz, CJNG tortured and killed 35 members of another cartel . The bodies were dumped “on a main road amid a battle for territorial control,” according to the National Counterterrorism Center. In 2015, in Jalisco, 15 Mexican police officers were killed in a cartel ambush . It is described as “one of the deadliest attacks on security forces in modern Mexican history.” The same year, CJNG shot down a military helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade, killing nine soldiers.
In June 2020, CJNG attempted to assassinate Mexico City Secretary of Public Security Omar Garcia Harfuch, injuring him while killing two bodyguards and a bystander.
In January 2025, Toronto Police seized 835 kilos of cocaine linked to the cartel in Project Castillo — TPS’ largest ever seizure — with a street value of $83 million.