After the flames of the narcobloqueos and the eerie silence, Mexico is coming back to life. From the capital, television stations are no longer showing amateur videos filmed from a distance: reporters are talking about a return to normality. Yesterday they were filming charred vehicles and torn-up motorways without getting out of their cars; today they are showing goods returning to the markets.
Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, El Mencho, was the head of the most powerful cartel, Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG). This was especially true after the Sinaloa cartel, deprived of El Chapo, fell into a spiral of internal warfare, with thousands of deaths and desaparecidos. Like most of the narcos who dominate today, El Mencho had a past in law enforcement. During the special forces' raid in Tepalpa, he tried to escape into the bush with two associates. Surrounded and armed to the teeth, they were wounded. A detail that did not remain unnoticed here is that none of the three survived the trip to the hospital.
‘This is unprecedented. Now let's see how they fare with the World Cup in Guadalajara, the capital of the state of Jalisco", says my Uber driver. Years ago, he ran into El Chapo: "Those were different times. I was having dinner, an anniversary celebration in a restaurant in Sinaloa. Armed men arrived and told us to put away our mobile phones. Shortly afterwards, he appeared. After dinner, he got up, apologised for the disturbance and paid everyone's bill." There was a pact of mutual delimitation, he says, but the lines are no longer clear.
I am in Mexico City for a series of lectures. A student arrives breathless and late, telling me he ran into a narco-blockade, a car blocking the motorway. Another sends word that they have also stopped the buses from Puebla, which is usually quiet. ‘They are everywhere, they no longer respect the capital,’ says an old man who curses the ‘socialist government’. It was in the capital that the National Guard procession arrived on Sunday with Mencho's body. In the streets, as usual, police sirens. In the centre, the special tactical units of the metropolitan police, the Zorros masked in black, were deployed in plain sight to order cars to slow down.
Everyone remembers the Culiacanazo of 2019, the Black Thursday of Culiacán, capital of the Sinaloa state. In the hours following the arrest of Ovidio, son of El Chapo, the cartel launched a coordinated attack. Hundreds of men, heavy weapons and roadblocks throughout the city clashed with security forces until the government opted to release the young boss. Today's scenario is similar, but on a much larger scale: hundreds of roadblocks in some twenty states, seven of which have closed schools and universities. The implicit agreement not to involve the tourist areas of the coast has also been broken.
Hugo H, known as El Tule, was remotely directing the CJNG attacks. He has been eliminated: they specify that he had promised 20,000 pesos (1,000 euros) for every soldier killed. This is a show of force by the Mexican state. On television, Defence Minister Ricardo Tevilla Trejo, dressed in camouflage, is moved as he remembers the 25 soldiers killed. The total number of deaths is reported to be 72, including narcos and bystanders. Prime Minister Claudia Sheinbaum has ruled out the involvement of US forces in the blitz.
Yet something has changed in relations with Washington, which continues to target boats, both alleged drug traffickers in Venezuelan waters and those approaching the blockade against Cuba.
With the killing of Mencho, Mexico, which is busy negotiating tariffs, is showing the US that it can put tangible results on the table: a credible willingness to comply with the new MAGA line on the Western Hemisphere. In recent weeks, there have been joint anti-drug operations at sea, as well as the presence of Navy SEALs for training activities in the state of Campeche. In public, the popular Sheinbaum can display rhetoric critical of the US – in line with the deep feelings of the Mexican left – only to then act in the opposite direction. I am told that the centre of political power is shifting towards security institutions, intelligence flows and operational capacity. Behind the scenes, the Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena) is riddled with tensions and risks tearing itself apart, polarised between its founding father and former president, López Obrador (AMLO), and Omar García Harfuch – now Secretary of Security and former police chief. Harfuch is rising as a key figure in the fight against the narcos (in 2020, he survived an armed ambush by the CJNG). The White House is betting on his visibility for the future, with explicit statements of appreciation. During the transition, a Mexican columnist wrote how AMLO had told Sheinbaum that he did not want him in the her cabinet. Claudia insisted, and eventually, in exchange, she had to yield half her cabinet picks to AMLO loyalists. She is now in the process of overhauling her cabinet.
Just 48 hours after the Mexican army's operation against El Mencho, the US anti-drug czar, Sara Parker, in office since March 2025, arrived in Mexico City, announcing on social media a meeting with military and security leaders, recalling that “the cartels' days are numbered' and announcing President Trump's promise “to save American lives”. Mexican government sources assured that the meeting had already been planned. Parker then went to the National Palace to meet with Sheinbaum for an hour and a half.
In Mexico City, the word is on the street that the CJNG will continue to launch coordinated attacks in a dozen states and analysts agree on that point. An uncertain phase is beginning, and it is likely that more blood will be shed. The succession in the CJNG is far from clear, while other cartels will try to take advantage of the vacuum. El Mencho's son, Rubén (el Menchito), is in prison in the United States. Among the candidates for succession is his nephew, Juan Carlos González (R3), considered close to his wife Rosalinda (La Capa). But also Audias N. (El Jardinero), head of operations in Jalisco, Michoacán and Guerrero. And Abraham Jesus Ambrìz Cano (Yogurt), who was a member of the Viagra and Carteles Unidos cartels and was recruited by El Mencho, who turned against his old comrades-in-arms and put him in charge of the Yogures, special forces made up of Colombian mercenaries. The CJNG is larger, richer and more violent than the Sinaloa Cartel. For now, its structure, which is in some ways confederal and decentralised, appears relatively intact. The succession will not be a gala dinner.