{"id":201395,"date":"2026-02-24T00:22:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T00:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/el-mencho-killed-in-mexico-who-was-the-notorious-cartel-leader-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T00:22:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T00:22:14","slug":"el-mencho-killed-in-mexico-who-was-the-notorious-cartel-leader-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/el-mencho-killed-in-mexico-who-was-the-notorious-cartel-leader-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"'El Mencho' killed in Mexico. Who was the notorious cartel leader? – USA Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

After spending years evading authorities worldwide, a powerful Mexican cartel leader<\/a> was killed during a military operation, Mexican officials announced on Sunday, Feb. 22.
Nemesio Rube\u0301n Oseguera Cervantes<\/a>, commonly known as “El Mencho,” rose through the ranks and launched a deadly coup to become the leader of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacio\u0301n (CJNG). The criminal enterprise rapidly grew into a continent-spanning empire that rivaled its former allies in the Sinaloa Cartel, run by kingpin Joaquin “El\u00a0Chapo” Guzman<\/a>, who is serving life in prison.
In 2024, the U.S. Department of State offered\u00a0a $15 million\u00a0reward for information leading to Oseguera’s arrest and\/or conviction. After reports of his death surfaced, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau described “El Mencho” in a social media post<\/a> as “one of the bloodiest and most ruthless drug kingpins.”
Here’s what to know about the Mexican drug lord:
He was born Rube\u0301n Oseguera Cervantes<\/a> on July 17, 1966, in the small farming city of\u00a0Aguililla\u00a0in the western state of\u00a0Michoaca\u0301n, according to The Courier Journal<\/a>, part of the USA TODAY Network.\u00a0He later adopted the name\u00a0Nemesio, some say to honor his godfather. It was shortened to “El\u00a0Mencho”\u00a0and has no other known meaning.\u00a0
A powerful drug kingpin with 5,000 members spread across every continent except Antarctica, Oseguera’s brutal cartel is blamed for kidnappings, torture, murders, cannibalism, and the spread of fentanyl \u2014 which surpassed heroin as America\u2019s deadliest illicit drug.\u00a0\u00a0
“More recently, CJNG operatives, allegedly under Oseguera Cervantes\u2019 direction, were involved in assassination attempts of Mexican government officials,” the State Department said in December 2024.
Unlike some cartel leaders who inherited leadership positions from family dynasties, his\u00a0parents were farm workers who carved out a living in\u00a0Aguililla, a city of fewer than 20,000 people in Michoaca\u0301n,\u00a0known as the world’s\u00a0avocado capital. Oseguera dropped out of school after the sixth grade to pick avocados.\u00a0\u00a0
“El\u00a0Mencho”\u00a0eventually made 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. Court and prison records show he has entered the United States at least three times and was repeatedly deported.\u00a0
After being ordered to leave the area by another organization, “El\u00a0Mencho” joined the police force in\u00a0Tomatla\u0301n, a small city south of Puerto Vallarta in the western state of Jalisco.
Eventually, Oseguera\u00a0returned to his native\u00a0Michoaca\u0301n, where he joined the\u00a0Milenio\u00a0Cartel, an entrenched criminal organization operating since at least the early 1990s.\u00a0Milenio\u00a0eventually tapped “El\u00a0Mencho,” a skilled\u00a0sicario<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 or assassin \u2014 to lead one of its cells in Guadalajara as a cartel lieutenant.
As Oseguera rose through the ranks of\u00a0Milenio, he expected to be rewarded with the\u00a0top position. But when some of the cartel\u2019s leaders were arrested or killed in 2008 and 2009, “El\u00a0Mencho” wasn’t promoted.
Incensed, Oseguera plotted revenge in 2009 and 2010 with others who were unhappy with\u00a0Milenio\u2019s\u00a0new leadership and\u00a0spearheaded a deadly coup. He\u00a0emerged victorious in early 2011, and his new cartel was christened the\u00a0Ca\u0301rtel de Jalisco Nueva\u00a0Generacio\u0301n.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
Oseguera\u00a0controlled several key drug trafficking routes and hubs in Mexico and gave orders to the “capo,” or plaza boss,\u00a0similar to\u00a0a mafia lieutenant.
His cartel dominates much of Guadalajara and controls the outskirts of Jalisco, as well as other states such as\u00a0Colima and Michoaca\u0301n. CJNG has spread to most of Mexico’s 32 states, with\u00a0an increasing presence in\u00a0Tijuana and Mexico City.
As the boss, “El\u00a0Mencho”\u00a0set the\u00a0piso<\/em>, or tax, that business owners and independent drug traffickers had to pay the capos for protection.\u00a0Oseguera\u00a0also\u00a0assumed\u00a0control of corrupt police officers and politicians.\u00a0
“El\u00a0Mencho’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel\u00a0was one of the biggest buyers of politicians and political campaigns, which has given it an enormous social base,” Edgardo Buscaglia, an organized crime expert at Columbia University, told Reuters<\/a>.
Oseguera\u00a0was the lead defendant in a federal indictment returned in the District of Columbia in 2017, accusing him of leading a continuing criminal enterprise. He was also charged with conspiring to send large amounts of drugs into the United States and using firearms during these drug trafficking crimes.\u00a0
Oseguera\u00a0also faced meth trafficking charges from a 2013 federal indictment in Gulfport, Mississippi.\u00a0
Despite a $15 million bounty, Oseguera stayed on the move for years and dodged manhunts that began within a year of his rise to power in 2011. He was rarely seen, staying in remote compounds that made it harder for police to breach, and didn’t do drugs or drink alcohol to avoid slip-ups, the Courier Journal reported in 2019.
U.S. drug agents and Mexican authorities teamed to root out El\u00a0Mencho\u2019s\u00a0hiding spots at least three times. Police raided his secret compounds in 2012\u00a0and 2018, but he escaped, the newspaper reported.
According to the Courier Journal, the Mexican military also learned Oseguera’s\u00a0hiding spot and headed to get him in two military helicopters in May 2015. But his men\u00a0shot down one of the helicopters<\/a>\u00a0with a Russian-made rocket-propelled grenade launcher.\u00a0
Contributing: Reuters<\/em><\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After spending years evading authorities worldwide, a powerful Mexican cartel leader was killed during a military operation, Mexican officials announced on Sunday, Feb. 22.Nemesio Rube\u0301n Oseguera Cervantes, commonly known as “El Mencho,” rose through the ranks and launched a deadly coup to become the leader of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacio\u0301n (CJNG). The criminal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":201396,"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-201395","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\/201395","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=201395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}