Mexico and US DEA team up against cartels after failed attempts to capture one of the most powerful figures still on the loose
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| More than 200,000 have been killed and 30,000 have gone missing in Mexico’s militarized war on drugs which was launched in December 2006. |
Mexican authorities have raised the bounty on one of the country’s most bloodthirsty cartel kingpins – Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho” – whose underlings have deployed waves of violence to thwart attempts at detaining him.
Officials announced on Wednesday that they are offering 30m pesos ($1.56m) for information on Oseguera, leader of the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG,) which deals heavily in making and moving methamphetamines, and has expanded its reach across Mexico as rival criminal groups splinter.
The announcement came as the US Drug Enforcement Administration and Mexican officials prepared to unveil plans to deepen cooperation against the cartels. The new strategy includes closer scrutiny on cartel finances and a new enforcement group, which will focus on international investigations.
“The new game plan is … pick up the speed and arrest more people,
faster,” Matthew G Donahue, director for the DEA’s North and Central American Region, told the AP.
Oseguera is one of the most powerful figures still on the loose, having eluded capture for nearly a decade. The CJNG has launched coordinated shows of strength across western Jalisco state by blocking roads with hijacked vehicles as federal forces close in on its leader.
His wife, Rosalinda González Valencia – who is accused of overseeing the cartel’s finances – was arrested in late May in suburban Guadalajara.
The CJNG emerged in 2010 after a prominent Sinaloa Cartel boss, Nacho Coronel, was killed by federal forces and Oseguera won the ensuing power struggle.
The cartel has earned notoriety for its violence and its willingness to confront state forces in open battle: CJNG gunmen are accused of ambushing a police convoy in an attack which killed 15 officers. They later shot down an army helicopter.
Analysts say the cartel has disputed territories previously controlled by the Sinaloa Cartel, whose leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was captured in 2016 and extradited to the United States the following year.
But recently the CJNG has itself reportedly split, leading to more fighting between former allies.
More than 200,000 have been killed and 30,000 have gone missing in Mexico’s militarized war on drugs which was launched in December 2006. Violence reached record levels in 2017 with 29,168 homicides registered.
President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promised to rethink the country’s anti-narcotics strategy by offering amnesties to low-level figures forced into the illegal drugs business and tackling what he considers the root causes of crime: poverty and corruption.
His nominee for public security secretary, Alfonso Durazo, has promised to discard the so-called “kingpin strategy” of capturing or killing senior cartel figures, telling Mexican media on Wednesday: “It hasn’t produced the best results.”
Critics of the strategy say that it only create more violence as new crime bosses emerge and fight for the spoils of the drug market.
“Of 122 prime targets, 120 have been detained. Insecurity has increased, however,” Durazo said. “For us it is much more important to pursue narcotics traffickers’ money rather than narcotics traffickers themselves, because what gives narcos their operational ability … are resources to corrupt and operate.”
But Donahue defended the kingpin strategy, saying authorites in the two countries will “always go after the top dog” in a cartel and “always go after the entire organization”.
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