Somewhere deep in Mexico's remote wilderness, the world’s most dangerous and wanted drug lord is hiding. If someone you love dies from an overdose tonight, he may very well be to blame.
He's called "El Mencho."
And though few Americans know his name, authorities promise they soon will.
Rubén "Nemesio" Oseguera Cervantes is the leader of Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación, better known as CJNG. With a $10 million reward on his head, he’s on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Most Wanted list.
El Mencho’s powerful international syndicate is flooding the U.S. with thousands of kilos of methamphetamines, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl every year — despite being targeted repeatedly by undercover stings, busts and lengthy investigations.
The unending stream of narcotics has contributed to this country’s unprecedented addiction crisis, devastating families and killing more than 300,000 people since 2013.
CJNG’s rapid rise heralds the latest chapter in a generations-old drug war in which Mexican cartels are battling to supply Americans’ insatiable demand for narcotics.
A nine-month Courier Journal investigation reveals how CJNG's reach has spread across the U.S. in the past five years, overwhelming cities and small towns with massive amounts of drugs.
The investigation documented CJNG operations in at least 35 states and Puerto Rico, a sticky web that has snared struggling business owners, thousands of drug users and Mexican immigrants terrified to challenge cartel orders.
...The billion-dollar criminal organization has a large and disciplined army, control of extensive drug routes throughout the U.S., sophisticated money-laundering techniques and an elaborate digital terror campaign, federal drug agents say.
Its extreme savagery in Mexico includes beheadings, public hangings, acid baths, even cannibalism. The cartel circulates these images of torture and execution on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to spread fear and intimidation.
...Courier Journal reporters pieced together CJNG’s network, from the suburbs of Seattle, the beaches of Mississippi and South Carolina, California’s coastline, the mountains of Virginia, small farming towns in Iowa and Nebraska, and across the Bluegrass State, including in Louisville, Lexington and Paducah.
...CJNG has skirted Mexican and U.S. inspections at legal border crossings by hiding drugs in semitrailers hauling tomatoes, avocados and other produce, dumping at least 5 tons of cocaine and 5 tons of meth into this country every month, according to DEA estimates.
El Mencho and his cartel, with more than 5,000 members worldwide, have a clear-cut objective:
"They want to control the entire drug market," said Matthew Donahue, who oversees foreign operations for the DEA.
"If that takes them killing other cartels or killing innocent people, they will do it."
...In cases in which immigrants resist the cartel's offer, CJNG members often threatened violence — to them or their loved ones back in Mexico, according to court cases and law enforcement officials.
he cartel's expansion into smaller, unexpected communities began to mushroom about five years ago as U.S. intelligence analysts tracked its movements far beyond border towns and major hubs.
Smaller towns. Smaller police forces. More unchecked opportunities.
"Big cities have big police departments and DEA, FBI and (Homeland Security Investigations) and an ability to look at intelligence and focus on their cells and contacts,” said the DEA's Donahue.
"But it’s a little different when you go to Boise, Idaho, and other small towns where they don’t have the resources to really focus on an international cartel."
...In a Nov. 5 tweet, after nine people — including six children — with dual U.S.-Mexican citizenship were killed by cartels (though different ones than CJNG), President Donald Trump vowed to assist Mexican officials "in cleaning out these monsters."
"The cartels have become so large and powerful that you sometimes need an army to defeat an army!"
But Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador declined Trump's offer for U.S. troops, saying his country doesn't need help.
Will El Mencho ever be captured?
Agents say he typically travels in a convoy, surrounding himself with dozens of well-trained mercenaries armed with military-grade weapons that can tear through tanks, even aircraft.Read much more here.
Moreover, the U.S. lacks the authority to make arrests in foreign countries, said Evans, a senior DEA official.
"If an agent saw him, we couldn’t say, 'Hey, we’re gonna grab El Mencho right now, take him and put him into custody.' We're guests in their country.”
But DEA agents across the border are sharing intelligence and working with their Mexican counterparts to devise ways to dismantle CJNG and arrest its leaders.
They’re also working to train Mexican police to improve the country's “solve rate” for kidnappings and murders, which is less than 5%. Many are committed by cartels.
Throughout Mexico, more than 40,000 children and adults remain missing. Ransom-seekers and other cartels are responsible for many of those disappearances, with CJNG to blame for thousands, DEA agents say.
The U.S government has crippled dozens of businesses that supported CJNG and sent El Mencho’s son and chief financial backer to prison, along with members of his inner circle.
Still, El Mencho’s empire is growing.
Thanks to Doug Ross for linking to this story.
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