Video: Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, the anti-drug organization that scares Latin America

Present in at least 23 of the 32 Mexican states, the cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) Became the group of narcocriminals with the greatest projection in this country. The DEA, the US drug agency, defines it as “one of the fastest growing transnational criminal organizations in Mexico.” Authorities warn that she is one of the most prolific manufacturers of methamphetamine in the world and that she is responsible for the entry of a significant percentage of the drug which now “floods” the American territory.

Their boss, Nemesio Oseguera Fernandez, better known as “El Mencho”, is one of the region’s most wanted criminals. The US Department of State. is offering up to $ 10 million for information leading to its capture. His son and second in charge of the CJNG, Rubén – alias “El Menchito” – he was extradited to the United States in February 2020. Her daughter Jessica Johana was arrested in Washington in February of that year and, after pleading guilty, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

In the new DEF video, we explain why the CJNG has become the real “bête noire” of Mexican organized crime and why its leader is now the DEA’s number one target.

WHO IS “EL MENCHO” OSEGUERA?

The founder of the cartel, Nemesio Oseguera, began his flirtations with drug trafficking in the United States in the mid-1980s. He entered that country illegally and, in 1986, when he was only 14 years old, he was arrested in possession of a firearm by the San Francisco police and then deported to Mexico. Just three years later, he returned illegally to the United States, and this time the stakes were higher: entered the profitable heroin business. He was arrested again in 1989 and then in 1992. On this last occasion, he received a five-year sentence, which he served in part before being deported in 1997.

Back in Mexico, “El Mencho” enlisted as a member of the municipal police of Tomatlán, in the state of Jalisco. Around these years he began to associate with the Millennium Cartel, a group which in turn was associated with the nascent Sinaloa Cartel. In the state of Veracruz, Oseguera then commanded a cell specializing in the fight against Los Zetas, another Mexican narco-criminal group. which was in full swing during those years. This cell of “Los Mata-Zetas” would become the seed of the current Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) cartel, which came to dominate the local scene and penetrate, with its illicit enterprises, the lucrative North American market.

DANGEROUS DRUGS: THE FENTANYL ROUTE

One of the keys to CJNG’s expansion in the United States is his control of the fentanyl route. This synthetic opioid, much more powerful than heroin and more addictive than morphine, has become a real headache for the authorities of its northern neighbor. The United States is facing a real crisis related to the use of this drug and overdose deaths have increased in recent years.

How does this drug get to Mexico? Fentanyl and its precursor chemicals are transported from China across the Pacific. To control this traffic, the port domain is key. Of particular note are the port terminals of Lázaro Cárdenas, in Michoacán state, and Manzanillo, in neighboring Colima state. To them is added the port of Veracruz, on the eastern coast of the country. The presence of the CJNG makes it possible to “contaminate” the containers and to camouflage the drugs which enter the country from the Asian giant.

In the first half of 2021, seizures of fentanyl in the United States increased at a rate never seen before. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized approximately 3,800 kilograms of fentanyl, a figure equivalent to the total seized in 2020, which shows the rapid growth of the synthetic drug market.

DRUGS, WEAPONS, CUDDLES AND A “SCHOOL OF TERROR”

Another disturbing facet of the CJNG is its oiled safety machinery, the powerful arsenal with which he has and a ruthless corps of contract killers. The Mexican press recently offered chilling details about the group’s so-called “school of terror”. On this site, according to testimonies collected by researchers, the recruits are forced to butcher the corpses and eat the human remains. “If there is no body, there is no crime to be prosecuted” is the premise that guides those responsible for these training camps for future contract killers.

One of its strongest moments was CJNG’s recklessness on May 1, 2015, when The group shot down a Mexican Air Force helicopter in Villa Purificación, in Jalisco state. To do this, they used an RPG rocket launcher. The sophisticated weapons and armored vehicles used by the cartel show its dangerousness and its open challenge to the armed and security forces. They see themselves, many times, overwhelmed by the actions of this cartel, which assumes increasingly bloody edges and today keeps the Mexican authorities in suspense.

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