Mexico’s top kingpin is dead, unleashing wave of violence

Wild scenes erupted across Mexico yesterday (Sunday) after special forces killed the country’s most-wanted cartel boss, ‘El Mencho’.

Who?

After two US jail stints and deportations for trafficking in the 80s, El Mencho worked as a cop back in Mexico before joining the Milenio Cartel as a sicario (hitman), until something big happened: Mexico famously captured the Milenio boss (El Lobo) in 2009, then killed his allied Sinaloa kingpin (Nacho) in 2010.

Those hits created a big leadership vacuum, and Milenio then tore itself apart amid fears of a betrayal from within or above (Sinaloa). So El Mencho took one of those factions and founded the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG – Jalisco being its state stronghold).

He used extreme violence to then build CJNG into one of Mexico’s top cartels, running fentanyl, meth, coke, and beyond into the US, and attracting bounties in both Mexico and the US amid bloody turf wars with Sinaloa that still shape the cartel landscape today.

So… how’d they get El Mencho?

It seems he was laying low near the charming old mountain village of Tapalpa (pop ~6,000), a popular getaway for yuppies from Guadalajara (pop 5.5m) two hours away.

So acting on US intel, and keeping Jalisco state authorities in the dark, Mexican special forces mounted a raid that left several of his bodyguards dead. As for El Mencho? The government wanted him alive, but he died of his wounds aboard a military chopper.

Anyway, that’s when things somehow escalated even further, as CJNG members…

• torched buses and trucks to form 250+ highway bloqueos across a dozen states
• and burned countless businesses to the ground (a Costco got hit), while
• airlines cancelled flights in/out of tourist hubs like Puerto Vallarta amid the chaos.

Major cities like Guadalajara sheltered in place as the skyline resembled a warzone, dotted with flames and plumes of smoke amid the rattle of gunfire.

Why’d the cartel retaliate like that? While bigger than anything we’ve seen, it’s a classic show of strength to…

• signal cohesion and strength
• deter any more government or rival moves, and
• disrupt and distract the government while the cartel regroups.

So now what?

President Sheinbaum is urging calm, emphasising coordination among authorities, and praising Mexico’s security forces for the hit. Ditto, the country’s 31 governors plus the head of Mexico City have all now closed ranks behind her.

But having just witnessed the biggest outbreak of disorder in Mexico’s recent history, the country might need more than Sheinbaum’s trademark calm to move forward.

Intrigue’s Take

So zooming out a little, what does this all mean? Here are six observations:

First, seven years after Mexico’s left-leaning Morena party first took power with its famous abrazos no balazos (hugs not bullets), it’s now pivoting hard back to bullets. Why?

Second, that ‘hugs’ strategy (less military confrontation, more social programs) simply didn’t work. Sheinbaum’s predecessor (known as ‘AMLO’) presided over almost as many homicides as the previous two presidents combined — we’re talking ~200,000! But also…

Third, Trump 2.0 has piled unprecedented pressure on Mexico to take a harder line, using Mexico’s massive economic dependence (80% of its exports) as leverage.

And yet fourth, some might be over-egging the Trump factor here. The US has been sharing cartel info for decades, including for this hit (via a new taskforce). Plus El Mencho had it coming: he famously tried to assassinate Mexico City’s police chief (Harfuch) in 2020. Harfuch not only survived but went on to become Sheinbaum’s security minister, overseeing, yes… this hit on Mencho — ie, it was also personal for him, and for Mexico.

Fifth, the breadth and scale of the cartel’s response is a stark reminder Mexico will struggle to reach its economic potential so long as organised crime flexes that kind of parallel power: those images out of Puerto Vallarta will spook tourists, while the footage out of Guadalajara will rattle FIFA, which is meant to be running World Cup matches there this June! Plus foreign investors already price a degree of insecurity into their Mexico decisions, but this will still be one heck of a wake-up call.

Then finally, it’s worth pondering what options Mexico might have next. Going full El Salvador doesn’t seem realistic, not just politically for Sheinbaum, but also practically: El Salvador is way smaller, its criminal structure way simpler, and its dark money maybe 2% of Mexico’s.

Meanwhile, there’s the risk things now get worse before they get better: Mexico’s history of criminal fragmentation (including El Mencho’s own story) suggests we could now see a power vacuum filled with smaller, more violent, and more elusive splinter cells.

Sound even smarter:

• The nickname ‘El Mencho’ doesn’t have a meaning the way (say) ‘El Chapo’ means ‘shorty’. Rather, Mencho is a folksy contraction of his name, Nemesio.