Mexico’s Most Wanted Drug Kingpin ‘El Mencho’ Killed by Military Forces

Mexican army special forces killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as 'El Mencho,' during a capture attempt in Jalisco state Sunday. The 59-year-old built one of Mexico's most powerful drug cartels over two decades, with the U.S. offering a $15 million bounty for his arrest.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican military forces killed one of the world’s most notorious drug kingpins Sunday during an operation in western Mexico’s Jalisco state.

Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, better known by his alias ‘El Mencho,’ died when army special forces tried to apprehend him in Tapalpa, according to authorities. The 59-year-old had managed to stay largely invisible despite commanding one of Mexico’s most feared criminal enterprises for over twenty years.

The few existing photos of Oseguera Cervantes date back to his early run-ins with law enforcement in California during the 1980s and 1990s, when he faced robbery and narcotics charges.

Born as Rubén Oseguera Cervantes in the rural town of El Naranjo in Michoacan state, he later adopted the name Nemesio for reasons that remain unclear, according to Carlos Flores, who studies organized crime at the Center for Research and Higher Education in Social Anthropology. This name change led to his infamous moniker ‘El Mencho.’

As a young man, Oseguera Cervantes crossed into the United States and made California his home. His marriage connected him to the ‘Cuinis’ criminal network through his brother-in-law Abigael González Valencia, nicknamed ‘El Cuini.’

Following a three-year federal prison sentence for heroin distribution, American authorities sent Oseguera Cervantes back to Mexico. Once in Michoacan, he deepened his involvement with ‘Los Cuinis,’ a group connected to drug trafficker Armando Valencia Cornelio, known as ‘El Maradona,’ who headed the now-dissolved Milenio cartel.

During the 1990s, Oseguera Cervantes ‘was in contact with a significant organization’ that moved cocaine with Colombian suppliers and maintained connections to Sinaloa trafficking networks, Flores explained. Valencia Cornelio employed him as an armed enforcer.

Rising violence with rival factions in Michoacan forced Valencia Cornelio and González Valencia to relocate their criminal enterprise to Jalisco, where they expanded their partnership with Sinaloan drug networks.

When authorities captured Valencia Cornelio in 2003, both González Valencia’s crew and Oseguera Cervantes shifted their allegiance to Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Coronel, who handled financial operations for the Sinaloa Cartel and worked alongside Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, the former cartel boss currently imprisoned for life in the United States.

Óscar Nava Valencia assumed leadership of the Milenio organization, transforming them into muscle for the Sinaloa Cartel in their war against the brutal Zetas.

The arrest of Nava Valencia in 2009, followed by Coronel’s death at the hands of Mexican forces a year later, created internal fractures that demonstrated how eliminating cartel leadership often spawns new criminal groups. Oseguera Cervantes aligned with Erik Valencia Salazar, called ‘El 85,’ to establish the Jalisco New Generation Cartel around 2009.

Within less than twenty years, Oseguera Cervantes built a massive criminal empire employing thousands of operatives. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reports the organization maintains operations across 21 of Mexico’s 32 states, while Mexican officials claim the cartel functions in 36 nations worldwide.

Flores credits this explosive expansion to several elements, particularly security strategies under former President Enrique Peña Nieto that damaged the Sinaloa Cartel, including Guzmán’s final arrest and transfer to American custody. These developments created opportunities for the Jalisco organization to fill the void.

American authorities took notice of the cartel’s rapid growth, placing Oseguera Cervantes on their most wanted fugitive list in May 2016. The U.S. State Department initially posted a $10 million bounty for information leading to his capture in 2018, later increasing it to $15 million in 2024. Former President Donald Trump classified the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and five other Mexican trafficking organizations as foreign terrorist groups last year.

Despite having only a basic education, Oseguera Cervantes possessed the cunning and strategic thinking necessary to construct an organization that secured backing from local and federal corruption while expanding beyond drug smuggling into extortion, property investment, fuel theft and various other illegal enterprises, Flores noted.

His violent end highlighted what Flores described as his ‘capacity for violent action’ that enabled him to construct his criminal kingdom.