WORLD / ANALYSIS

U.S. raids unlikely to crack Mexican capo's drug empire

Police stand guard behind a parapet of sandbags at the entrance to Santa Rosa de Lima, birthplace of a local cartel that goes by the same name, in Guanajuato state, Mexico, in February. Mexico's fastest-rising cartel, the Jalisco New Generation gang, has a reputation for ruthlessness and violence unlike any since the fall of the old Zetas cartel. | AP

By Mark Hosenball and Drazen Jorgic
Reuters

Mar 23, 2020

MEXICO CITY/WASHINGTON –

A major bust by U.S. drug authorities targeting Mexico's fastest-growing gang will likely do little to stem the rise of the ultraviolent Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and its shadowy leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias 'El Mencho.'

Over the past decade, Oseguera, a 53-year-old former policeman, has masterminded the CJNG's emergence as a criminal empire spanning five continents and a rival to the Sinaloa Cartel of captured kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, now in a U.S. prison.

From the swathes of Mexico's western Jalisco state that he controls, Oseguera is accused of flooding U.S. streets with synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl, that cause tens of thousands of deaths every year.