El Mencho, who was born Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes and was the leader of Mexico’s most feared criminal organisation, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) has been killed
A notorious cartel leader has been killed in a significant military operation in western Mexico.
The head of Mexico’s feared Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), “El Mencho”, was killed during the military raid, according to local news reports.
The ruthless drug lord, whose real name is Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, was recognised as the leader of the dreaded CJNG – with federal forces confirming his death today (February 22), reports the Mirror.
Mexican outlet MILENIO cited senior officials who confirmed Cervantes had been killed during the army operation. Roadblocks were reported across six neighbouring states, with burning vehicles obstructing roads over a vast area – a tactic frequently employed by cartels to hinder military forces from conducting operations against them.
El Mencho rose to become the most powerful drug lord in Mexico following the capture of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
The US State Department had previously offered a reward of up to $15million for information leading to El Mencho’s arrest.
The CJNG has undergone rapid expansion throughout Mexico in recent years, under the low-profile leadership of El Mencho.
Nemesio Oseguera, 53, left school in sixth grade to assist his family in harvesting avocados, according to Mexican media. As a young man, he entered the United States unlawfully and attempted to establish a network of clients as a drug dealer, before being arrested.
As a young man, he and his older brother, Abraham Oseguera, sold heroin to two undercover police officers in 1992 and were sent to a federal prison and later deported.
In 1997, he travelled to Tijuana, where he established a successful drug trafficking operation; subsequently, he served as a police officer in Tomatlán, Jalisco, gaining insight into the workings of law enforcement.
Following his time as a cartel assassin and narcotics trafficker, and after surviving internal conflicts between competing gang factions in Jalisco, Oseguera ultimately became leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, earning the nickname “El Mencho”.
Members of the organisation regularly commit savage acts of brutality to terrorise their adversaries and have even been known to bring down an army helicopter using a rocket-propelled grenade.
Allegations emerged that they would force new members to consume human flesh and participate in beheadings at their notorious “terror schools”.
One anonymous recruit previously told the DailyBeast.com: “I’ve been there and there was a lot of [cannibalism]. They recruit them and then they start working on them.”
Initially, CJNG members are instructed how to sever their victims’ fingers and toes, one of the cartel’s favoured torture techniques.