As Mexican cartel violence has escalated during the Biden administration, the U.S. State Department announced it is increasing a reward for a Mexican drug lord.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is also seeking information on two others. All three remain at large.
The State Department announced it was increasing a reward amount to $15 million through its Narcotics Rewards Program for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Mexican national Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho.”
El Mencho is believed to be the co-founder and current leader of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), a violent transnational criminal organization based in the Mexican states of Jalisco and Colima. It’s known for members’ use of extreme violence, including homicides, forced disappearances and creating mass graves, as well as taking over a corner of the transnational drug trafficking trade.
The CJNG emerged from the Milenio Cartel in 2010 after Mexican security forces killed a former Sinaloa Cartel leader, Ignacio Coronel, known as “Nacho,” law enforcement officials have explained to The Center Square. As cartel infighting escalated over control over a multi-billion-dollar illicit drug and fentanyl trafficking business, CJNG took over a former Sinaloa regional business and continues to battle with the Zeta cartel. These and other cartel groups have carved up different parts of the US-Mexico border to control the trafficking of people and drugs, authorities have found.
The CJNG is well known for killing Mexican police officers and creating mass graves in Jalisco, according to multiple news reports. In 2019, one investigation found 13 mass graves with 70 bodies. Another investigation conducted by the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights (OHCHR) found that between 2009 and 2014, 53 mass graves were uncovered from which 152 bodies were exhumed.
By 2019, Mexico cartel crime had escalated with more than 40,000 cases of 26,000 unidentified bodies in morgues and 1,300 clandestine graves. “The effective search for and location of the disappeared are the main demand of the families and a primary and pressing obligation of the Mexican State,” OHCHR said at the time, Vanguardia Mexico reported.
Crime escalated under Mexico’s former president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who implemented a “hugs not bullets” policy with the cartels, arguing there was no crime. His government also later sued American gun manufacturers blaming them for Mexican cartel gun violence.
In the last election cycle, the outgoing Obrador oversaw one of the bloodiest elections in Mexican history, also blaming Americans for the violence, as dozens of Mexican candidates were allegedly murdered by the cartels, The Center Square reported.
A coalition of 28 U.S. state attorneys general, led by Montana, petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out Mexico’s lawsuit. They argue if Mexico were serious about ending cartel violence, the government would actually do something about it.
“If Mexico wants to end its domestic gun problem, it may do so. It could name and report the gun dealers who allegedly sell guns to drug cartels. It could attempt to negotiate with the United States to extradite individuals who trafficked guns to Mexico. It could finish its war with the cartels. It could even close its border with the United States. But it cannot end the domestic manufacturing of American firearms,” they said.
Since 2017, El Mencho has been indicted several times in the U.S. for drug trafficking. In April 2022, he was charged with “engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise; conspiracy to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine, cocaine, and fentanyl for importation into the United States; and use of a firearm during and in relation to drug trafficking crimes,” the State Department said. He remains a fugitive.
Those with information about El Mencho are encouraged to contact the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration via text or WhatsApp at 213-237-9990 or by email at [email protected].
The DEA is also requesting information and tips about other CJNG leaders, Audias Flores-Silva and Juan Carlos Valencia Gonzalez; each have reward offers of up to $5 million for their arrest and/or conviction. They remain fugitives.
Both have been indicted by federal courts; Flores-Silva on cocaine and heroin drug conspiracy charges and firearm/drug offense charges and Valencia Gonzalez “conspiracy and distribution of a controlled substance for unlawful importation to the United States and use of a firearm during a narcotics transaction,” according to the State Department.
