{"id":201306,"date":"2026-02-23T06:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T06:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/mexican-cartel-leader-el-mencho-killed-in-military-operation-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T06:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T06:14:08","slug":"mexican-cartel-leader-el-mencho-killed-in-military-operation-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/mexican-cartel-leader-el-mencho-killed-in-military-operation-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexican cartel leader 'El Mencho' killed in military operation – USA Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mexican drug lord Nemesio Rube\u0301n Oseguera Cervantes, commonly known as “El Mencho<\/a>,” was killed in a military operation, officials announced<\/a> on Sunday, Feb. 22, the latest victory in Mexico’s war on drug cartels\u00a0amid U.S. intervention threats<\/a>.
Mexico’s defense ministry said a shootout in Tapalpa, Jalisco, left Oseguera seriously injured, and he died during an air transfer to Mexico City. Six other cartel members were killed and two were arrested in the military operation.
“Various weapons and armored vehicles were seized, including rocket launchers capable of shooting down aircraft and destroying armored vehicles,” Mexican officials said, adding that the authorities in the United States provided “complementary information.”
A former police officer, Oseguera was the shadowy leader of the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel, an outfit\u00a0named for\u00a0the western state that is home to\u00a0one of Mexico’s biggest cities, Guadalajara. Over a relatively short period of time, the cartel transformed into an\u00a0international\u00a0criminal enterprise rivaling former allies in the Sinaloa Cartel, the gang of captured kingpin Joaquin “El\u00a0Chapo” Guzman<\/a>, now in a U.S. prison.
Oseguera’s death notches a major victory for Mexico’s war on drug cartels that are responsible for smuggling billions of dollars in cocaine and fentanyl into the U.S.\u00a0The operation set off a wave of violence<\/a>, with torched cars and gunmen blocking highways in more than half a dozen states.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on social media<\/a> that “there is absolute coordination with the governments of all states,” adding that “we work every day for peace, security, justice, and the well-being of Mexico.”
Jalisco\u00a0Governor Pablo Lemus Navarro urged residents to stay home until the situation was brought under control,\u00a0and the U.S. embassy advised its citizens to shelter in place. Videos on social media showed cars ablaze, sending dark smoke into the sky, on roads in Jalisco.
The military operation against Oseguera follows a pressure campaign from the Trump administration on Sheinbaum’s government to ramp up its crackdown on drug trafficking, which included U.S. threats to intervene directly in Mexico.
The ministry said in the release that the United States provided information for the operation.
“In addition to central military intelligence efforts, complementary information was provided by U.S. authorities within the framework of bilateral coordination and cooperation with the United States,” the release read.
Reuters reported, citing an unnamed U.S. defense official, that the Joint Interagency Task Force-Counter Cartel, played a role in the operation. The agency, launched in late 2025, specializes in intelligence collection on drug cartels on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. The official stressed the raid itself was a Mexican military operation.
The news agency also reported that the U.S. compiled a detailed target package for\u00a0Oseguera\u00a0and provided it to the Mexican government for its operation, citing a separate, unnamed former U.S. official.
Mexican media outlets reported burning vehicles and gunmen blocking highways in more than half a dozen states across the country, particularly in the north and west. Mexico’s security cabinet said in a post on X that, as of 3 p.m. ET, there were 21 active highway blockades in Jalisco<\/a> and 20 branches of Banco del Bienestar<\/a> in the state that suffered damage.
Flights to Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara airports<\/a> have been\u00a0diverted or canceled<\/a>\u00a0by major airlines, including\u00a0Delta Air Lines,\u00a0American Airlines,\u00a0and\u00a0Alaska Airlines. The Liga MX Femenil match between Chivas and Club Ame\u0301rica scheduled for Feb. 22, and a men’s Liga MX match were postponed due to the violence<\/a>.
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau called the killing a “great development for Mexico, the US, Latin America, and the world” in a post on X<\/a>. “I\u2019m watching the scenes of violence from Mexico with great sadness and concern.”
Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on international organized crime, compared Oseguera to other key drug figures taken down in recent years, Guzman and Ismael\u00a0“El\u00a0Mayo” Zambada<\/a>, both of the rival Sinaloa cartel.
“Apart from the heads of the Sinaloa cartel,\u00a0‘El\u00a0Mencho’\u00a0has been the biggest prize for many, many years,” Felbab-Brown told Reuters, adding that she expects a “tremendous amount of violence is going to happen.”
Unlike some cartel leaders who inherited leadership positions from family dynasties, Oseguera’s\u00a0parents were farm workers who carved out a living in\u00a0Aguililla, a city of fewer than 20,000 people in Michoaca\u0301n\u00a0\u2014\u00a0known as the world’s\u00a0avocado capital.
He dropped out of school after the sixth grade to pick avocados, The Courier Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported in 2019<\/a>. The future “El Mencho” attempted to\u00a0build a drug-trafficking business in the Bay Area, served more than four years in federal prison, and was deported after he sold heroin for $9,500 to two undercover officers at the Imperial Bar in San Francisco in 1992.
Oseguera\u00a0made his way to Tijuana, the\u00a0prominent\u00a0border town\u00a0for American tourists and feuding Mexican cartels.\u00a0There, he grew his drug-smuggling business in San Diego and quickly made a name for himself at the main entry point into the U.S. that acts as a popular drug plaza for cartels wanting to export their product across the border.\u00a0
Oseguera\u00a0had been indicted several times in the U.S., most recently in 2022 on charges under the “Drug Kingpin Statue” for operating a continuing criminal enterprise and conspiracy to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine, cocaine, and fentanyl for unlawful importation into the U.S., according court documents reviewed by USA TODAY.<\/a>
Contributing: Reuters<\/em><\/p>\n

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Mexican drug lord Nemesio Rube\u0301n Oseguera Cervantes, commonly known as “El Mencho,” was killed in a military operation, officials announced on Sunday, Feb. 22, the latest victory in Mexico’s war on drug cartels\u00a0amid U.S. intervention threats.Mexico’s defense ministry said a shootout in Tapalpa, Jalisco, left Oseguera seriously injured, and he died during an air transfer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":201307,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-201306","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}