Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: Where in Mexico is El Mencho?
Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (Spanish pronunciation:[ne'mesio ose'ɣera θeɾˈβantes]; born 17 July 1966), commonly referred to by his alias El Mencho (Spanish pronunciation:[el 'mentʃo]), is a Mexican suspected drug lord and leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), a criminal group based in Jalisco. He is the most-wanted criminal in Mexico and one of the most-wanted in the U.S. Both governments are offering up to MXN$30million and US$10million, respectively, for information that leads to his arrest. He is wanted for drug trafficking, organized crime involvement, and illegal possession of firearms. El Mencho is reportedly responsible for coordinating drug trafficking operations in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania. Under his command, the CJNG became one of Mexico's leading criminal organizations.
On 18 December 2017, seventeen year-old YouTuber star Juan Luis Lagunas Rosales, known as "El Pirata de Culiacán" (English: The Pirate from Culiacán), was gunned down in a bar in Jalisco by a group of four men armed with rifles, shortly after Lagunas Rosales published videotaped insults towards El Mencho.[55] Police are investigating if El Mencho gave the order to execute him, but no charges have been filed.[56]
Rosalinda González Valencia is the wife of El Mencho. They have three children: Jessica Johana, Laisha, and Rubén Oseguera González (alias "El Menchito).[70] Jessica Johana is married to Julio Alberto Castillo Rodríguez (alias "El Ojo de Vidrio"), first arrested on 1 May 2015. He was released on 1 July for lack of evidence, but was re-arrested again on 6 April 2016, for his involvement in the CJNG.[71][72] El Mencho's son Rubén was regarded by the Mexican government as the second-in-command in the CJNG prior to his arrest in 2014. He was released from prison on several occasions for lack of evidence, but was re-arrested each time by the police for additional charges.[73][74]
Mexican authorities suspect that González Valencia played a key role in the CJNG during his time in Mexico. They believe he was the security chief of El Mencho in 2015. He is also accused of leading the CJNG's expansion in Mexico over the drug territories once controlled by the Knights Templar Cartel in Michoacán. The Attorney General of Mexico (PGR) suspects that when his brother Abigael (alias "El Cuini") was arrested in Mexico in 2015, he reportedly took control of his CJNG tasks, and led multiple attacks against security forces in Jalisco during his tenure. Later that year, he fled Mexico and settled in Bolivia.
The attack was one of the deadliest incidents against security forces during the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012–2018), and the first and deadliest against the National Gendarmerie () – at that time the newest police force in Mexico – in the ongoing Mexican Drug War (2006–present). In addition, the attack was the third deadliest against any part of the Mexican Federal Police (PF) force since 2006. The National Gendarmerie was created on 22August 2014 by Peña Nieto to combat crime in Mexico. All of the officers had received training from the Army and had not been part of any other police force prior to joining. The cadets were mostly young, college-educated recruits, and they were recruited without previous police training under the rationale that this prevented corruption in the National Gendarmerie's ranks. The commanders of the units were trained by police forces in the United States, Colombia, Chile, Spain, and France. The force was initially made up of 5,000 officers, and was a subdivision of the PF, which consisted of roughly 36,000 members when the National Gendarmerie was created. Though members were required to have military training, the National Gendarmerie was intended to be a civil police force capable of a rapid response to crime.
Since late November 2014, around 300 National Gendarmerie officials had been stationed in Ocotlán to safeguard the borders of Jalisco–Michoacán and Jalisco–Guanajuato, and prevent the incursion of the Knights Templar Cartel, a Michoacán-based criminal group and a rival gang to the CJNG. They conducted patrols after there were reports of cargo theft in the region. Weeks prior to the ambush, law enforcement officers carried out several covert operations in Ocotlán and the entire Ciénega area. According to intelligence reports, they had information that the suspected CJNG leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (alias "El Mencho"), was in the area. On the day of the attack, the police reportedly had information that El Mencho was in a meeting in Oxnard street, in the neighborhood where the attack occurred. Investigators believe that the CJNG carried out the attack to restrict the mobility of the security forces and allow El Mencho to escape from the area. They also suspected that the CJNG planned the attack as a retaliation for attempted crackdowns against El Mencho, who became one of Mexico's most-wanted following the arrest of Servando Gómez Martínez (alias "La Tuta"), the suspected leader of the Knights Templar Cartel.
On 8 April 2015, the United States Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned El Mencho under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act ("Kingpin Act") for his involvement in international drug smuggling operations. The sanction was joint investigation conducted by the Treasury and the DEA office in Los Angeles as part of a larger effort with their Mexican counterparts to sanction drug trafficking groups in Mexico. The sanction extended to the CJNG, his brother-in-law Abigael González Valencia, and Los Cuinis. As part of the sanction, all the U.S.-based assets and/or assets in control of U.S. individuals on behalf of El Mencho, González Valencia, the CJNG, and Los Cuinis, were frozen in the U.S. In addition, the act prohibited U.S. citizens from engaging in business activities with them.[62]
After three years, he was released from prison on parole and deported to Mexico at the age of 30.[10] Once in Mexico, he joined the local police forces of Cabo Corrientes and Tomatlán in the state of Jalisco. Within some time, however, he left the police and joined organized crime as a full-time member of the Milenio Cartel.[7][13] To strengthen his relationship with the Milenio Cartel, El Mencho married one of the clan leader's sisters, Rosalinda González Valencia.[12] It was in this criminal group where El Mencho would become a leading figure in organized crime.[10]
Rubén Oseguera González was born on 14 February 1990, in San Francisco County, California. He also holds Mexican citizenship. He has several aliases, including "Rubén Garibay González", "El Junior", "El Rubencito", "El Rojo", "El Niño", and "El Menchito". His last nickname is a diminutive of his father's nickname El Mencho, which comes from the phonetic derivation of his name Nemesio. His mother, Rosalinda González Valencia, is the sister of Abigael González Valencia, a former leader of the Milenio Cartel and Los Cuinis. His father, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (alias "El Mencho"), is the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and one of Mexico's most-wanted men. Oseguera González has two sisters, Jessica Johana and Laisha.
El Mencho was a close associate of his siblings and grew up in the same rural community as Rosalinda's. He worked as a guard for the clan's marijuana plantations and eventually joined Rosalinda's siblings in the drug trade in the U.S. After El Mencho was deported to Mexico, he joined a local police force and married Rosalinda in 1996. Their matrimony helped strengthen El Mencho's relationship with Rosalinda's clan. They had three children: Laisha, Jessica Johana, and Rubén Oseguera González (alias "El Menchito"). El Mencho was one of the founders of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), a criminal group that sprung in the 2010s from the remnants of the Milenio Cartel. In the 2000s, several of Rosalinda's family members were arrested by security forces, which splintered the Milenio Cartel into two factions, Los Torcidos and La Resistencia. Los Torcidos was headed by El Mencho and several of Rosalinda's family members, and they eventually consolidated their influence after defeating La Resistencia. After Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán was extradited to the U.S. in 2017, El Mencho became Mexico's most-wanted man.
On 27 September 2011, Mexico's Office of the General Prosecutor (PGR) issued an arrest warrant for El Mencho and offered MXN$2million for anyone who can help provide information that leads to his arrest.[51] He was accused of organized crime involvement and illegal possession of firearms.[52] In March 2014, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, based on the previous investigations by the DEA, indicted El Mencho for several charges, including drug trafficking and for being leaders of a "Continuing Criminal Enterprise".[53] El Mencho and Abigael were accused of coordinating shipments of cocaine and methamphetamine from South America via Mexico to the U.S. They also stated that the CJNG and Los Cuinis coordinated the collection and delivery of the drug proceeds from the U.S. to Mexico.[54] In addition, the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas is looking to convict El Mencho for drug trafficking offenses.[3]
On 28 October 2009, however, the Milenio Cartel's top leader Óscar Orlando Nava Valencia (alias "El Lobo") was arrested.[15] The following year on 6 May 2010, his brother Juan Carlos (alias "El Tigre") was arrested too.[16] Two months later, Coronel was killed in a shootout with the Mexican Army. Following their downfalls, the Milenio Cartel began to rupture and El Mencho tried to take over its leadership structure.[13][14] One sect within the Milenio Cartel wanted to appoint Elpidio Mojarro Ramírez (alias "El Pilo"), who worked closely with Óscar Orlando and Juan Carlos before their arrest, as the leader of the group. Érick Valencia Salazar, one of the clan members, however, wanted El Mencho to take command. El Mencho then asked the other Milenio bloc to hand over Gerardo Mendoza (alias "Tecato" and/or "Cochi") for killing a group of men that reported to him in Tecomán, Colima. The other division refused El Mencho' request, prompting an internal war.[17]
A month later on 1 May 2015, the Mexican government launched Operation Jalisco, a military-led campaign that intended to combat organized crime groups in Jalisco and capture their respective leaders.[39] The announcement came after a series of violent attacks from the CJNG in previous weeks. The day the operation was inaugurated, however, intelligence reports stated that El Mencho was in Tonaya, which prompted an offensive to apprehend him. As the security forces moved to the area where El Mencho was allegedly hiding, a gunfight broke out between law enforcement officials and gunmen of the CJNG.[40] In the small town of Villa Purificación, Jalisco, El Mencho' men shot down a Mexican Army helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher, killing 9 soldiers.[41][42] The battle extended throughout several municipalities in Jalisco; El Mencho' men blockaded several roads across the Guadalajara area to slow down the mobilization of law enforcement and facilitate their leader's escape. The CJNG set 39 buses, 11 banks, and 16 gas stations on fire. The attack spread through 20 different towns and in three neighboring states.[43]
In the Milenio Cartel, El Mencho started as a member of the assassin squad that protected the drug lord Armando Valencia Cornelio (alias "El Maradona"). On 12 August 2003, his boss was arrested by Mexican authorities. Around the same time, a rival criminal group known as Los Zetas, with the backing of the Gulf Cartel, carried out an armed offensive against the Milenio Cartel in Michoacán. The attack forced the Valencia family to exile in Jalisco; El Mencho relocated in the state capital, Guadalajara, with his father-in-law José Luis González Valencia (alias "El Quini") and Román Caballero Valencia. In Jalisco, El Mencho and the Milenio Cartel formed an alliance with the Sinaloa Cartel subgroup headed by Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel, a high-ranking drug lord and ally of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. Under Coronel, El Mencho and his group managed the Sinaloa Cartel's drug operations, finances, and murder activities in the states of Colima and Jalisco.[13][14]
The Milenio Cartel's divisions split into two. One side was known as La Resistencia; the other was Los Torcidos, headed by El Mencho. La Resistencia accused Los Torcidos of turning in Óscar Orlando to the authorities. A war ensued, and the two groups fought for the drug smuggling turfs in Jalisco.[13][18] To legitimize its presence, El Mencho' group launched a propaganda campaign against its enemies, denouncing extortions done by rival gangs against civilians, businessmen, and government authorities.[14] Los Torcidos eventually won the war and consolidated their influence in western Mexico. The group then changed its name to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (Spanish: Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, or CJNG).[19][20]
On 25 August 2012, a unit of the Mexican Federal Police based in Tonaya, Jalisco, responded to an anonymous tip stating that there was an organized crime cell present in a rural community close by. When the security forces got to the area, a shootout broke out between the two parties.[26] 6 CJNG gunmen were killed in the firefight. Initial reports stated that El Mencho was captured in the operation, but the Mexican government later confirmed that he was not in custody.[27][28] In a series of highly coordinated tactics to prevent El Mencho' arrest, the CJNG blocked several highways and roads across the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area by setting at least 37 vehicles on fire.[29] The purpose of the burning vehicles was to place them as blockades to impede the security forces from traveling across Jalisco's capital and giving El Mencho' ample time to escape.[13] The blockades were placed in strategic routes to prevent police reinforcements to come in or leave Guadalajara. After the attacks were over, the government confirmed that El Mencho was in the area and had evaded capture.[30]
On 19 March 2015, in Ocotlán, Jalisco, CJNG gunmen ambushed a Federal Police convoy. The total death toll was 11; five police officers, three civilians, and three CJNG gunmen. The attack was a response by the CJNG to protect El Mencho, who was reportedly in the area for a meeting.[31] On 23 March, Heriberto Acevedo Cárdenas (alias "El Gringo" and "El Güero"), one of El Mencho' close associates, was killed in a shootout with the Federal Police in Zacoalco de Torres, Jalisco. Three other CJNG suspects were killed. According to government sources, Acevedo Cárdenas directed CJNG cells in Zacoalco, Tlajomulco, Cocula, Tapalpa and Atemajac de Brizuela, Jalisco.[32] In response to his death, El Mencho commanded the CJNG to carry out attacks against the Mexican Federal Police.[33] On 30 March, CJNG gunmen in Zapopan, Jalisco, ambushed a convoy where Alejandro Solorio Aréchiga, Jalisco's security commissioner, was travelling in. No one was killed in the fire exchange.[34] On 6 April, CJNG gunmen blocked a road in San Sebastián del Oeste, Jalisco, with a burning vehicle and opened fire at a convoy of the Federal Police, killing 15 policemen and wounding 5 more.[35][36] The incident was the deadliest single-attack on the Mexico's police force since 2010.[37] That same day, Miguel Ángel Caicedo Vargas, the police chief of Zacoalco de Torres, was killed by CJNG hitmen.[38]
In November 2016, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) identified La Garra as one of the top three leaders of the CJNG, along with El Mencho and Abigael González Valencia (alias "El Cuini"). La Garra's decision-making power and role within the CJNG is lower than El Mencho's. According to the DEA report, the CJNG was responsible for shipping wholesale amounts of methamphetamine, marijuana, cocaine, and heroin to the United States from the border crossings in Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, and Nuevo Laredo. The CJNG then used distribution centers in Los Angeles and Atlanta to move narcotics across the country. In the report, the DEA stated that La Garra's organization was the newest of the main drug trafficking groups in Mexico and had risen to prominence through aggressive territorial expansion. In Mexico, La Garra reportedly operates mainly in Jalisco, Colima, Guanajuato, Nayarit, Veracruz, Morelos, Guerrero, and Michoacán.
In 1989, El Mencho was arrested again in San Francisco for selling narcotics. He was deported to Mexico several months later, but re-entered the U.S. and resettled in San Francisco. In September 1992, he was arrested again, this time on federal drug charges in Sacramento, California.[7][10] According to court records, El Mencho and his brother Abraham were at a San Francisco bar known as Imperial to carry out a heroin deal: five ounces for US$9,500. Abraham was in charge of the transaction, while El Mencho acted as a lookout. El Mencho was 26-years-old at that time and much younger than Abraham, but he was savvy enough to recognize that the transaction was a set-up by the police. He told his brother that the men who they gave the heroin to handed them perfectly stashed dollar bills instead of giving them loose ones. Through a wiretap conversation, the police overheard El Mencho warning his brother to never do business with them again since they were undercover cops.[10]
As leader of the CJNG, El Mencho solidified his position and grew his organization through territorial expansion and by corrupting government officials. The CJNG went from being a small, offshoot criminal gang to one of the leading criminal groups in Mexico. Throughout the process, El Mencho established himself as one of Mexico's most-wanted criminals.[13] His rise to fame is due to a number of factors, including the aggressive and sensationalist displays of public violence by the CJNG. The direct attacks of the CJNG against Mexico's security forces earned El Mencho a reputation among authorities as "principal enemy" of the state and as a dangerous criminal. In addition, the fall of Mexico's former top crime bosses cleared the way for El Mencho to gain visibility and status.[19][21]
El Mencho was able to make the CJNG one of Mexico's most profitable criminal gangs.[24] The government estimates that El Mencho's group has about US$50billion in total assets.[23] This success was shared with Abigael González Valencia, his brother-in-law, who headed a drug trafficking group known as Los Cuinis, allied to the CJNG.[24] Abigael was arrested by the Mexican Navy on 28 February 2015.[25] Part of El Mencho' success in the drug trade had to do with his ability to strategize market and consumer changes. Initially, the CJNG produced methamphetamine, but then he moved to heroin production when the consumer demand changed.[21]
According to the Mexican government, El Mencho may be hiding in the state of Jalisco, the CJNG's stronghold. However, they believe he does not stay in one place for too long, and travels across several municipalities in Jalisco and into the states of Michoacán, Colima, and Nayarit.[44][45] He usually travels across the mountains and rural terrains in these areas since it provides multiple escape routes in the event that security forces attempt to encircle him.[44] Authorities suspect El Mencho's inner circle is made up of mercenaries with former military training. His second security circle is much larger in size and serves as a rearguard to notify El Mencho's inner circle of suspicious activity and ambush potential parties that attempt to get close to him.[46]
On 1 May 2015, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) carried out a series of attacks in Jalisco, Mexico, and four adjacent states to prevent the capture of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (alias "El Mencho"), their suspected leader. The operation began early that morning in Villa Purificación, where four Mexican Air Force and Federal Police (PF) helicopters spotted a CJNG convoy protecting El Mencho. As one of the helicopters flew over the convoy, the CJNG members shot it down using rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers. Nine law enforcement officers died as a result of the attack, and multiple others were wounded. This was the first incident in the Mexican Drug War in which organized crime groups shot down an aircraft.
On 18 November, federal authorities arrested Iván Cazarín Molina (alias "El Tanque") in Tlajomulco de Zúñiga for his alleged involvement in the helicopter attack. At the building where he was arrested, authorities confiscated four assault rifles, three handguns, a package of cocaine, four vehicles, and radio communication equipment. According to PF chief Enrique Francisco Galindo Ceballos (), El Tanque was a high-ranking leader of the CJNG and reported directly to El Mencho as the group's second-in-command following the arrest of El Mencho's son Rubén Oseguera González (alias "El Menchito"). The PF also suspected that his center of operations was in Guadalajara, where he used money laundering proceeds to further his criminal activities. They believed he was also responsible for drug trafficking, extorting businesses, leading oil theft rings, and homicides in Jalisco and Veracruz. Prior to his arrest, the PF carried out several covert operations over six months and eventually found their way to El Tanque's inner circle, where they discovered that he frequented a location that the CJNG used as one of its centers of operations and as a recreation spot. The police highlighted that no shots were fired in the operation, partly because El Tanque and his three accomplices were drinking alcohol and were not prepared to defend themselves when the police raided the building.
Since the 2000s, the DEA office in Los Angeles, California, tracked El Mencho' activities and detected that the CJNG had expanded its drug trafficking operations internationally.[47] In 2000, the U.S. government discovered that El Mencho was involved in a cocaine and methamphetamine operation internationally. Five years later, they discovered he had used firearms to facilitate his operations.[48] In 2007, the DEA discovered that El Mencho was involved in a cocaine operation that went through Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, and ended in the U.S. They also uncovered a second cocaine shipment from Colombia, Mexico, to the U.S. In 2009, DEA detected that El Mencho was involved in another cocaine shipment originating from Ecuador.[49] Two more shipments were then detected in 2013 from Mexico then the U.S.[48] In 2014, however, the DEA noticed a radical shift in the CJNG's modus operandi; El Mencho' was discovered to have coordinated a methamphetamine shipment that went from Mexico to Australia then to the U.S by leveraging China-based gangs.[47][50]
The attention shifted from El Mencho on 15 July 2016, when the suspected Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, once on Mexico's most-wanted list, escaped from prison a second time. This event embarrassed the Mexican government, which reallocated resources to apprehend El Chapo. This was important for the CJNG because it allowed El Mencho to re-evaluate the group's violent methods against security forces. Over time, ambushes and attacks against law enforcement declined, and the CJNG began to focus on fighting rival criminal groups and incursions into their turf.