Breaking
Nemesio Oseguera, leader of the CJNG, confirmed dead in a Jalisco mountain raid. President Sheinbaum declares a 30-day national security emergency. Washington confirms CIA involvement in the operation.
Mexican authorities confirmed Thursday that Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, the feared leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), was killed during a joint army-civil guard operation in the mountains of Jalisco state. Two of his top lieutenants were also reported dead. No Mexican soldiers were killed in the operation.
President Claudia Sheinbaum declared a 30-day national security emergency in Jalisco, Michoacán, Guanajuato, and Estado de México — the CJNG’s stronghold territories — as authorities braced for retaliatory violence. She announced an emergency cabinet meeting and said the federal government would deploy an additional 4,000 troops to affected states within 48 hours.
“This is a decisive moment in Mexico’s fight against organized crime,” Sheinbaum said in a nationally televised address. “El Mencho’s death does not end the CJNG — but it wounds it severely, and it sends an unmistakable message.”
Hours after the announcement, armed blockades appeared on at least four major highways in Jalisco, Michoacán, and Tamaulipas. State authorities in Michoacán reported an attack on a municipal police station that left three officers wounded. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks.
CIA’s Shadow War Comes to Light
A declassified White House statement released late Thursday confirmed that U.S. intelligence — specifically the CIA’s Special Activities Center — provided “operational support” in planning the raid. The statement said CIA assets helped pinpoint El Mencho’s location after months of intelligence work following a secret 2024 intelligence-sharing accord between Mexico and the United States.
The disclosure marks a significant escalation of U.S. involvement in Mexico’s cartels war and is likely to reignite a fierce political debate in Mexico over sovereignty. Former President López Obrador had publicly rejected any such U.S. military or intelligence presence, calling it a “violation of national dignity.”
“This operation was conducted by Mexicans, led by Mexicans,” Sheinbaum insisted. “The intelligence sharing was within the framework of the law. What we did with that intelligence was our decision.”
Senator Ricardo Monreal of the ruling MORENA party called for an emergency session of the Senate’s National Defense Committee to review the intelligence-sharing agreement. The opposition PAN party signaled support for the operation while demanding full transparency on the U.S. role.
Who Was El Mencho
Nemesio Oseguera, 61, rose from a small-time marijuana grower in Michoacan to build the CJNG into one of the most powerful and ruthless criminal organizations in the Western Hemisphere. The cartel operates in 28 of Mexico’s 32 states and has expanded aggressively into fentanyl production and trafficking — a business that has made it a primary target of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which had placed a $10 million bounty on his head.
The CJNG under El Mencho became notorious for its graphic execution videos, attacks on Mexican military installations, and the 2015 escape of “El Chapo” Guzmán from a maximum-security prison — a feat widely attributed to CJNG assistance in exchange for corridor access.
Three separate arrest attempts since 2013 had failed. El Mencho was captured in Mexico City in 2022 but escaped prosecution when a federal judge ordered his release on a procedural ruling. He had been in hiding since.
What Comes Next
Analysts are divided on what El Mencho’s death means for the CJNG. The cartel’s leadership structure is more institutionalised than many rivals — El Mencho’s son, Rubén Oseguera, has long been groomed as successor and is expected to take control. But experts warn the transition could trigger internal power struggles with rival CJNG commanders.
“The CJNG is not El Mencho, but El Mencho was the brand,” said Alejandro García, a security analyst at the Latin America Strategic Studies Center. “His son will try to hold it together, but the next six months will determine whether the cartel fractures or consolidates.”
U.S. authorities are expected to move quickly to freeze CJNG financial assets in the United States following the confirmation of El Mencho’s death, according to a senior DOJ official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The White House said President Trump called Sheinbaum Thursday evening to congratulate her government. The call lasted 22 minutes, a White House official said.
The confirmed death of El Mencho marks the most significant single blow to a Mexican criminal organization since the capture of “El Chapo” Guzmán in 2016, and the first time a sitting U.S. administration has been formally implicated in a direct operation against a cartel leader on Mexican soil. The political and legal fallout is expected to unfold over weeks, not days.
Mexico’s Attorney General’s office has opened a formal investigation into the intelligence-sharing agreement. Congressional hearings are scheduled to begin next week. The fate of Rubén Oseguera — and with it, the future of the CJNG — will determine whether this moment becomes a turning point or merely the opening chapter of a new cycle of cartel violence.