Nemesio 'El Mencho' Oseguera, the drug lord who defied the Mexican state like few others

Nemesio Oseguera, head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), was killed on Sunday by the army. He challenged the Mexican state like few others to consolidate his power, with police ambushes, an attack on the capital's security czar and even the downing of a military helicopter.

Nicknamed "El Mencho", 59, he was, until now, the most wanted drug trafficker by the U.S. government, with a reward of $15 million. He was considered the last of the Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman and Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada style leaders imprisoned in the United States.

"El Mencho" was born in Aguililla, a town in the western state of Michoacan, gateway to an inhospitable mountainous area, where illegal marijuana plantations flourished when he was a child.

As a young man, he emigrated to the United States, where he was imprisoned for heroin trafficking and, after serving a sentence, was deported. Upon returning to his homeland, he joined the Milenio cartel.

But some time later, the infighting of this criminal organization drove him out of Michoacan. Part of the Milenio cartel allied with the Zetas, a grouping founded by former elite military men who imposed terror in that state and other parts of the country.

"Violent nature"

Oseguera took refuge in the neighboring state of Jalisco. Alongside the Sinaloa cartel, he created the so-called "Matazetas" in 2009, who two years later displayed their brutality, leaving 35 bodies near a meeting of the country's prosecutors in Veracruz (east).

Then he broke away to found the CJNG, which quickly grew in strength. After the extradition of "Chapo" Guzmán and Ismael "Mayo Zambada" to the United States, he transformed his cartel into the most powerful in Mexico.

He created a large group of hitmen, even manufactured his own weapons, and expanded to several states in the country.

The Department of State declared CJNG a terrorist organization in 2025. It is a "transnational cartel with a presence in almost all of Mexico," which traffics fentanyl, extorts, traffics migrants, steals oil and minerals and trades arms.

Jose Reveles, a writer specializing in drug trafficking, explained to the AFP that "El Mencho" is a man of a "violent nature" who was not afraid to challenge governments at all levels, unlike other cartels, which attack authority defensively.

On June 20, 2020, he launched an unprecedented assault against the now secretary of security and civilian protection, Omar Garcia Harfuch, then the head of  Mexico City police. The official was wounded, and three people died, including two bodyguards.

In 2015, the CJNG unleashed a wave of terror in Jalisco. Its hitmen surprised the then-fledgling National Gendarmerie with bullets, then ambushed a caravan of state police on a highway.

They shot down a military helicopter with an RPG rocket launcher, in addition to setting off blockades and street fires, to prevent the capture of the drug lord. Dozens of people died in these actions, among them 20 policemen and nine military personnel.

Open markets

"El Mencho" fought his way through blood and fire, but for a long time, he was unable to compete with the cartels that controlled the border with the United States. Then, it targeted other markets and diversified its drug "supply."

"Europe, Asia, Africa and even Australia were less fought over by the Mexicans and there they pay the most expensive drug," Reveles adds.

Oseguera kept a low profile for years. "He was very careful not to expose himself publicly, little is known about his life," Reveles notes. But in 2025, he appeared on the screens of two narcocorridos concerts.

Few photos are known of him. On the Department of State reward card, he appears with a sharp, neatly combed face and a thin mustache, while on a DEA card from 1989, he is seen with frizzy hair and coarser features.

He was married in the 1990s to Rosalinda González Valencia, with whom he had three children before divorcing.

His ex-wife and two of his children were arrested. She walked free, but "El Menchito," as the older man is known, was sentenced last year in the United States to life in prison.

With information from AFP