‘El Mencho’ is Dead. The Cartel Mobilizes

COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating

Mexican officials had not yet confirmed the cartel kingpin’s death when violent reprisals erupted across the country.

Mexican security forces killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” in what authorities described as a significant blow to organized crime. Oseguera, the longtime boss of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), was killed Sunday morning during a pre-dawn raid in western Mexico, officials said.

Before officials confirmed the news, the response came hard.

Images circulated rapidly on social media, showing tractor-trailers engulfed in flames, masked men redirecting traffic, black smoke stretching across highways. Highways became choke points. Smoke columns were signals. Officials in several regions warned people to stay off the roads as cartel-affiliated groups moved openly to attack infrastructure and seize terrain. 

This was not chaos. It was choreography.

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The reactions reflect an organizational reflex. They are disciplined, pre-planned, and brutally efficient. When centralized authority is removed from a networked criminal enterprise like CJNG, the first priority is not mourning. It is messaging. 

The system must prove it still functions. It must demonstrate reach. It must reassure lieutenants, intimidate rivals, and test the state’s response time.

Remove the head, and the body moves fast.

El Mencho is confirmed dead. But CJNG was never built as a one-man show. It was built with regional commanders, logistics pipelines, and compartmentalized enforcement arms. That architecture is designed for survivability.

The speed of the narco-blockades suggests the contingency plan was already in place.

In recent months, attacks have targeted Mexican police and security forces. In December, a car bomb outside a community police station in Michoacán killed six people, including at least three officers. In February, police in Zacatecas were targeted with explosives.  

These are not improvised street tactics. They represent escalation, using methods more commonly associated with insurgent warfare than organized crime. They show that cartel actors are willing to push the envelope, and absorb the consequences.

Organizations like CJNG do not collapse because one node is removed. They adapt.

If succession has been prearranged, consolidation will be swift and ruthless. If it is contested, fragmentation will follow. Factions will compete for territory, revenue streams, and legitimacy. This will produce more violence, as smaller cells fight to establish dominance. Public brutality becomes recruitment and signaling.

The structural incentives, meanwhile, remain unchanged. Synthetic drug demand continues north of the border. Precursor chemicals still flow through ports. Money still launders through shell networks. Weapons still cross the border. 

The king is dead.

The system endures.

Susan Katz Keating is the publisher and editor in chief at Soldier of Fortune.