The story of the most wanted drug trafficker in the world ends with him hiding in a forest in the mountains of Jalisco. Mortally wounded, armed with a rocket launcher and accompanied by four men he trusted most, he came to an end early Sunday morning after having dedicated four decades to drug trafficking and having built his own criminal empire, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). El Mencho died from gunshots from the special force of the Mexican Army, which had been collecting information to locate him for years and managed to find his last location in the same way they did: through a visit from a woman.
The Secretary of National Defense, Ricardo Trevilla, gave this Monday some details of what is already Mexico’s most important operation against organized crime in recent years. The general has insisted from the beginning on how “difficult” “the intelligence process” is, the time it takes to break down which people, which places, are frequented by those who sow violence in a country. In the case of Mencho it has been a work fundamentally of the Mexican Army, but it has been counted. “There was a lot of additional information that the US gave us, that all of this, well integrated with what we had, could give us the exact location,” said the general.
For some time now, clues from the Mexican authorities had pointed to Tapalpa, a mountain town of about 20,000 inhabitants in the interior of Jalisco, as the refuge of the CJNG leader. On February 20, confirmation came: one of Mencho’s romantic partners was being transferred there. Oseguera is married to Rosalinda González Valencia, who was arrested in 2018. The Army knew this because they had located a man the woman trusted, who was the one who was going to take her. “She met with Mencho and on February 21 she left the property. Information was obtained that Mencho remained there with a security circle,” Ricardo Trevilla said.
How many security rings one of the most powerful criminals in the world can have is a question that the Government of Mexico has asked itself many times. How many mortal casualties stopping him can cause, was the other. However, everything indicated that on Saturday Mencho was only accompanied by a dozen bodyguards in some cabins on the outskirts of Tapalpa. The special forces began to prepare by land and air. Six helicopters were located in states near Jalisco “to preserve the secret and obtain the surprise.” In the early hours of Sunday, the last confirmation is received.
The soldiers deployed on foot around the cabins. They had two support planes. The siege began with the objective – according to the Secretary of Defense – of stopping it. However, Mencho’s security circle began shooting. “They open fire on the military personnel. El Mencho leaves and leaves a group with a large amount of weapons. It was really a very violent attack carried out by organized crime personnel. The military personnel of special forces repel the action, a total of eight criminals died there,” Trevilla detailed. Two soldiers are also wounded. When they inspected the cabins they found seven long weapons, eight vehicles, two razors and two rocket launchers, one of them of the same type that served in the first operation that tried to stop Mencho.
The action continued in the forest. The leader of the Jalisco Cartel had fled on foot with four of his closest collaborators. “Special forces personnel pursue them. A fence is established. They place it hidden in the undergrowth, they fire at the special forces personnel, they also had rocket launchers there, fortunately they did not use them,” the general said. In the crossfire, a soldier, Mencho, and two of his bodyguards were injured. Two other members of the CJNG were detained unharmed. The Army took away the rocket launcher, three long weapons and two short weapons. “Once the situation is controlled, health personnel are called.” He determines that both the leader of the cartel and his bodyguards are in very serious condition.
“The support of helicopters is requested so that they can be transferred to Guadalajara,” says Trevilla. However, . There the helicopter changed course, due to the risk that it could entail taking Oseguera, already dead, to the cradle of the cartel. “It was decided that they should go to Morelia, Michoacán, where an Air Force home plane was. They arrived there, they were transferred to the home plane that headed to Mexico City,” the general explained: “It was not convenient to get to Guadalajara, especially because of the risk that this group would carry out more violent actions in the capital of Jalisco.”
The CJNG’s reaction to the capture of its boss did not take long. His right-hand man, Hugo César Macías, known as El Tuli, He began to organize blockades and violent actions from El Grullo, a town about 100 kilometers from where the operation against Mencho had taken place. The main logistics and financial operator of the cartel targeted the military installations: “They offered 20,000 pesos [unos 1.100 dólares] for every soldier killed by the CJNG.” A unit of Army paratroopers was then deployed in El Grullo. El Tuli tried to flee aboard a vehicle, but he also ended up dead. He had on him, in addition to weapons, almost a million dollars and 7.2 million pesos.
In total, the Jalisco Cartel placed 252 roadblocks in 20 states on Sunday. Some, like Tabasco, more than 1,300 kilometers from where Mencho was arrested. , which forced a dozen States to suspend school classes for this Monday and urgently convene their security cabinets.
The highest death toll was not recorded in the operation in Tapalpa, but afterwards. Organized crime killed 25 members of the National Guard, a guard, an agent from the Jalisco Prosecutor’s Office and a civilian; On the other side, 30 alleged members of the cartel died. That’s only in Jalisco. In Michoacán, another of the CJNG strongholds, 15 soldiers were injured and four alleged hitmen were killed in numerous clashes on Sunday.
The end of Mencho has left at least 72 dead: 45 from organized crime, 26 from security forces and one civilian. President Claudia Sheinbaum has recognized the “extraordinary” members of the Mexican armed forces: “Men and women who are always willing to give their lives for others.” In addition, the president has tried to reassure the population of the country and that flights to Jalisco are expected to return to normal in the coming days. The president has indicated that she found out “very early” about the operation against the leader of the Jalisco Cartel and that her decision was to establish a command table with all the security forces. Now we just have to wait for the rearrangements within the criminal empire of the most wanted drug trafficker of all.
