The head of the Jalisco Cartel is the most powerful criminal in the world, says the DEA | Univision Drug Trafficking News

The Mexican authorities and the United States antinarcotics agency (DEA) have managed to get closer in recent months to Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias ‘El Mencho’, the bloodthirsty head of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG). Those capture operations have failed for a compelling reason: their drug empire continues to grow in such a way that He is already considered the most powerful criminal in the world.

“Now he is the number one threat in the global drug trade,” said Kyle Mori, the DEA agent who is leading the investigation to catch this kingpin, in an interview with Univision Noticias. “Your organization is the main threat regarding the importation of drugs, particularly fentanyl, opioids, counterfeit prescription pills, methamphetamine and heroin into the United States,” he adds.

‘El Mencho’, a former Michoacan policeman who created a crime transnational after his deportation from California, became a kind of ghost who dictates orders from somewhere in Mexico.

In 2019, the DEA claimed that it was hidden in the mountains between Michoacán, Colima and Jalisco. Now he doesn’t even dare to say if he suspects it’s still there. The only information it reveals is that in recent months they tightened the fence, locating the places that the mobster frequents and his trusted people.

“We’ve been hitting doing things like trying to establish some of his moves and some of the areas where he usually hangs out. We have come as close as identifying people who spend time with him, ”Mori said. “But I can’t really quantify anything like ‘being close.’ The expectations of our Mexican partners and the DEA is that ‘being close’ is not capturing ”, he stressed.

The months of the pandemic have not exactly been a period of lethargy for the Jalisco Cartel. At the end of June, when the streets of Mexico City looked deserted by quarantine, more than twenty CJNG gunmen who posed as workers for a construction company They tried to assassinate the secretary of Citizen Security of that metropolis, Omar García Harfuch.

A hail of bullets shattered the officer’s Suburban truck despite having the highest level of armor. Two policemen and a woman who was passing through the area died in the shooting. García Harfuch was injured and later revealed that ‘El Mencho’ had him threatened since August 2019.

In July a video became a trend on Twitter in which 75 hitmen from the Jalisco Cartel appear holding war rifles next to 19 vehicles (including ‘monster’ trucks) and shouting: “Pure people of Mr. Mencho!”. They identified themselves as part of the ‘Elite Group’, a heavily armed commando that guards the territory of that organization.

To this was added a third wave of rumors about the death of Oseguera Cervantes, a situation that generally occurs when the siege of a drug lord tightens.

There is a debate about how far the influence of this cartel goes in Mexico. The DEA says it controls at least 23 states, while a recent report from the US Congressional Investigative Service notes that its tentacles have spread to more regions, including much of the border strip.

In the United States, they have gone beyond distributing drugs in municipalities with a large Hispanic population, such as Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. They have been helped by their operators and various gangs.

They have also managed to send the huge profits from drug sales to Mexico through small remittance sending businesses. In Dallas, North Texas, a family that owns a clothing store is charged with launder more than $ 10 million making multiple transactions of less than $ 1,000 and using fictitious names.

The only cartel that continues to overshadow it on this side of the border is that of Sinaloa, which did not collapse with the life sentence that its founder Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán is already serving. His children, his old partner Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada and the resurgence of Rafael Caro Quintero, all of them on the DEA’s most wanted list.

A federal prosecution alleges that the ‘El Mencho’ criminal group recruited Mexican immigrants who live in Axton, in the state of Virginia, to facilitate the distribution of narcotics in the northeastern United States and to launder money.

The power that the cartel has gained in this country was shown by the arrest of more than 700 associates in the Project Python operation that concluded last March.

“In ten years, the CJNG went from controlling one or two cities to seeing them distributing drugs in rural areas,” said agent Mori.

“They have managed to take advantage of a gap in the drug trafficking market in small cities. I have seen investigations against CJNG in rural areas in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Massachusetts, areas that were not known for the narcotics trade and they have increased the epidemic of opioids and methamphetamine. That is unique ”, he warned.

– Was that the idea of ​​’El Mencho’? the DEA officer was asked

– Absolutely, answered.

The expansion that this cartel has experienced in the world is even greater. It is attributed to the control it exercises over the most important ports in Mexico: that of Manzanillo (Colima) and Lázaro Cárdenas (Michoacán). At the same time it disputes the Sinaloa Cartel the maritime terminals of Ensenada (Baja California) and La Paz (Baja California Sur). Cocaine shipments arrive on ships from South America and chemical precursors from Asia, with which it makes methamphetamine and fentanyl.

Sharing routes with South American gangsters has allowed reach all the continents of the planet, encompassing territories that no drug trafficking organization in Mexico has reached.

“We have seen the CJNG footprint on every continent in the world except Antarctica,” Mori said. “We have seen their control grow in areas of Africa, operating in the Middle East, in Asia, obtaining chemical precursors to produce methamphetamine and fentanyl in Mexico. We saw them start distributing cocaine in Japan and Australia. Certainly they have always had strong ties in Europe, in the United Kingdom ”, detailed the anti-narcotics agent.

Thus, what the criminal organization of ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán took decades to build, It took ‘El Mencho’ less than ten years. In 2010 they were still an armed wing of the Sinaloa Cartel that went to Veracruz to annihilate the Los Zetas gunmen. To make their mission clear, they called themselves “Los Mata Zetas”. Since then they have not stopped snatching ‘places’ from other mafias in Mexico.

“The alarming thing about ‘El Mencho’ and the CJNG is that each month they continue to earn more money, more territory, more influence and more power. Not only in Mexico, but in the United States, ”says Mori.

“In ten years they have gone from being an unknown cartel to being the largest drug trafficking organization in the world. Every day that ‘El Mencho’ and his associates are free they continue to grow and kill more people ”, warns the DEA official.

Unlike the striking ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, who came to record an interview for the magazine Rolling Stone In his desire for Hollywood to film a movie about his life, ‘El Mencho’ is a drug lord who tries to escape the spotlight. But fame has already reached him for the label of ‘El nuevo Chapo’ that the Department of Justice has hanged him. For his capture he offers a reward of $ 10 million.

Mori has been following in the footsteps of the head of the Jalisco Cartel for a decade. He says that it is difficult to determine if the mobster has already overcome the criminal career of ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán. As an example, he compares American football legend Johnny Unitas, who played 18 seasons until 1973 and is considered one of the best of all time, with Tom Brady, who is still active and has won six. Super Bowls.

“Which is better? It is difficult to compare them because there are many variants and they are from different eras ”, he explained.

“I certainly believe ‘El Mencho’ is as powerful as ‘El Chapo’ once was. But it is difficult to say if it is more powerful than him ”, concludes.