With ‘El Mencho’ killed, what’s next for Mexico and the Jalisco cartel? 

The killing of Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, or CJNG), has triggered a wave of violence across several Mexican states, including Jalisco.

Cervantes, better known as “El Mencho”, was killed in an operation by Mexico’s army on Sunday.

But what is the Jalisco cartel, and what happens next after the killing of one of the most powerful drug lords in the country?

What happened in Mexico on Sunday?

Shortly after news of El Mencho‘s killing spread, suspected cartel members launched coordinated reprisals across multiple states.

Attackers torched convenience stores and petrol stations, dragged trucks onto major highways and erected flaming roadblocks, known locally as narcobloqueos, paralysing cities and cutting off key routes.

“Panic spread among many people,” Miguel Alfonso Meza, director of Defensorx, a Mexican civil organisation dedicated to strategic litigation and the defence of human rights, told Al Jazeera.

“I heard from several relatives who had panic attacks; they were calling in tears, desperate, because they didn’t know what was going to happen,” he added.

The violence appeared intended to project strength and demonstrate the cartel’s reach following the loss of its leader.

In Jalisco alone, more than 25 National Guard members were killed.

“That makes it one of the bloodiest days, with some of the greatest losses for the federal government,” Meza said. “It is also the first time we’ve seen coordinated attacks across more than 20 states at once.

“I call it a terrorist attack,” he added, “in the sense that groups are labelled ‘terrorist’ when they use violence to instil fear in the population. And that is exactly what we experienced.”

What is the Jalisco New Generation Cartel?

The Jalisco cartel is one of Mexico’s most powerful criminal organisations.

Founded in about 2009-2010, the group emerged from the remnants of the Milenio cartel and quickly grew into a dominant force in the country’s drug trade.

It built a reputation for ruthlessness and violence unlike any since the fall of the old Zetas cartel.

Los Zetas were one of Mexico’s most feared criminal groups, founded by former elite soldiers who deserted and brought military tactics into organised crime.

They became notorious for using extreme brutality and for expanding beyond drug trafficking into kidnapping, extortion and fuel theft. 

What does the cartel do?

The United States Department of State has described the cartel as one of Mexico’s most powerful drug trafficking organisations, with significant cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine distribution networks, and in recent years a major role in fentanyl trafficking into the US. Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid linked to thousands of deaths in the US.

Beyond drug trafficking, the group profits from extortion, migrant smuggling, and oil and mineral theft.

It operates across much of Mexico and has built international trafficking routes stretching through Latin America to the US and parts of Asia.

The cartel has also been linked to a series of high-profile attacks against security forces and public officials.

In 2015, gunmen shot down a Mexican military helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade during an operation to capture its leader.

In June 2020, the group attempted to assassinate then public security secretary Omar Garcia Harfuch in Mexico City. He survived. Two bodyguards and a civilian were killed.

How does it operate?

Analysts say the cartel’s growth has been driven as much by strategy as by brutality.

“The CJNG has normalised the worst horrors of the Mexican drug wars, bodies hanging from lampposts, decapitated heads on the side of the road,” Chris Dalby, senior analyst at Dyami Security Intelligence, told Al Jazeera.

But he argues the violence is not random. It is deliberate and performative, designed to dominate rivals quickly and discourage resistance.

“That was an aberration a generation ago. The CJNG made it almost daily news. And that’s because of the way El Mencho trained his cartel.

“He trained them almost like Genghis Khan in their approach to conquest,” Dalby said, referring to the feared Mongol warrior. “They would wipe out opposition and use that as a warning: If you oppose us, this is what will happen to you.”

That approach helped the cartel grow quickly across multiple states, but it also meant constant confrontation. Much of its influence rests on mobility, intimidation and strategic alliances rather than deeply rooted territorial control.

What is next for Mexico after the killing of ‘El Mencho’?

The death of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera is one of the most significant blows to a Mexican criminal organisation.

While experts note the CJNG may now be in a “weaker position”, many warn that “decapitating” the cartel without dismantling its resources is a mistake.

Critics argue that instead of long-term “financial strangulation”, the government has returned to a strategy that previously failed during the presidency of Felipe Calderon (2006-2012).

Under Calderon, a hardline military offensive targeted cartel leaders in an effort to dismantle organised crime. But while several senior drug kingpins were captured or killed, the crackdown led to violent fragmentation. Hundreds of thousands were killed or disappeared in the years that followed, yet criminal groups ultimately adapted and continued to expand.

When the current governing party, Morena, came to power in 2018 under former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, it promised a different approach. Obrador’s slogan, “abrazos, no balazos” (“hugs, not bullets”), signalled a move away from high-profile kingpin takedowns towards social programmes and addressing root causes of violence.

Critics now question whether that strategy has eroded amid sustained US pressure on President Claudia Sheinbaum to curb drug trafficking, particularly fentanyl, with Washington repeatedly urging tougher action against major cartels.

In Sunday’s operation, the Mexican government stated it was carried out by Mexican special forces with intelligence support from the US.

“We see that both the US government and Mexico’s are turning once again to the same strategy of decapitating a cartel while the entire structure continues to exist, along with all the human and material resources they had to operate,” Meza of Defensorx said.

Analysts expect a new, unpredictable wave of violence. “We will see violence in a different pattern, in a different form, and with different motivation,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on non-state armed groups at the Brookings Institution. She added that this could last “for months to come and potentially years to come as the criminal landscape is being redesigned”.

Will the Jalisco cartel survive?

Yes, in all likelihood, say experts.

According to Meza, the Mexican government, by killing a leader while the organisation “is still at its peak”, has triggered a cycle of retaliation and internal power struggles.

This is because the cartel still “has the capacity to set half the country on fire”, and, separately, local rivals could now “test how far they can go to see if the CJNG gives ground”, Dalby explained.

Ultimately, experts suggest that removing a figurehead does not dismantle the business.

“El Mencho’s removal is like saying that a company is going to fail because you take out the CEO,” Dalby added.

“Not at all. The flow of drugs is going to continue … and there are going to be plenty of pretenders to the throne. And Mexico is going to have to figure that out.”