Mexico expects a new war for the cartel throne

After Mexican security forces killed the leader of the New Generation Cartel of Jalisco, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as El Mencho, on Sunday, which triggered a wave of violence and chaos that swept through cities across Mexico, the key question, according to the New York Times, is whether the cartel will quickly consolidate, name a successor and maintain unity, or is it threatened by internal discord and factional struggles for supremacy.

At the same time, the newspaper points out that the Mexican government is facing the challenge of waging a war on two fronts, as it is also waging a bloody showdown with the Sinaloa cartel, the biggest rival of the group from Jalisco.

The New Generation Cartel from Jalisco has been described as a global criminal organization that, in addition to drug trafficking around the world, grows avocados, smuggles migrants to the United States, even from China, and participates in illegal gold mining in South America.

Security expert Eduardo Guerrero called El Mencho's killing "the most significant blow to the drug trade in Mexico since it existed," noting that no previous organization had the territorial control and political influence of the cartel. However, analysts say it likely does not mean the end of the organization itself.

Most Mexican cartels are dynastic, security consultant David Saucedo told The New York Times, and the most painless changes at the top occur when power remains in the family. However, several of the Oseguera brothers have been arrested, as has his son, who was one of the top commanders of the Jalisco cartel until his extradition to the United States in 2020.

Rosalinda González Valencia, now Oseguera's widow, could try to take over the leadership, she is the daughter of a drug lord and one of the cartel's most important financial operatives, but the prospects for her rise are slim.

“In an environment full of machismo, it is difficult for a woman to take command of a criminal organization in Mexico,” Saucedo said.

The Mexican government is facing the challenge of waging a war on two fronts, as it is also waging a bloody showdown with the Sinaloa cartel, the group's biggest rival from Jalisco.

If a fight breaks out for control of the New Generation Jalisco Cartel, a wave of violence could spill over throughout Mexico.

Oseguera Cervantes, a former police officer, built the Jalisco cartel into one of the most feared criminal organizations in the country, one whose brutality stood out even in a Mexican context marked by beheadings, dismemberment, and corpses hanging from bridges. The cartel became one of the world's largest cocaine dealers and the largest trafficker of methamphetamine, while largely staying out of the fentanyl market. At the same time, it forged alliances around the world, collaborating with gangs as far away as Africa and Australia to expand its influence.

According to the US State Department, the group has contacts in more than 40 countries, including in China and Southeast Asia.

The US DEA states that the gang is organized like a franchise, and according to Eduardo Guerrero, director of the Mexican consulting firm "Lantia Intelligence", it consists of around 90 organizations.

"Such fragmentation means that it will take a more complex and sophisticated strategy to weaken and break them up," Guerrero told CNN earlier this year.

According to US officials cited by the New York Times, evidence has emerged that the cartel has recently begun to enter the fentanyl market, which has traditionally been dominated by the Sinaloa cartel.

The killing of Oseguera on Sunday surprised security analysts and diplomats, who had thought the Mexican government was too preoccupied with its fight against the Sinaloa cartel to open a second front. The two cartels are considered the most powerful in the country, with weapons and personnel that often exceed the state's capabilities. President Claudia Sheinbaum could now face one of the most violent and significant chapters in Mexico's recent history, the Times said.

His predecessor as president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, refused to confront the cartels directly, instead pursuing a policy he called “hugs, not bullets.” This involved increasing spending on social programs to persuade cartels to abandon criminal activities. The strategy did not work. Violence increased sharply during his term, and the cartels expanded their control over additional territories.

When Claudia Sheinbaum took office in late 2024, she deployed hundreds of soldiers to the state of Sinaloa, which was rocked by internal conflicts after the US arrested one of the cartel's top leaders shortly before her election.

The Mexican government's focus on Sinaloa played into the hands of the New Generation Cartel of Jalisco, which in the meantime expanded its territory and strengthened its ranks.

The Mexican government appears to have divided operations among its security forces. Security Minister Omar Garcia Harfuch is leading the fight against the Sinaloa cartel, while the military led the operation that killed Oseguera.

Analysts, however, point out that while the fall of cartel leaders attracts the most attention, the key is to dismantle the middle command layer. It is this level that connects the top of the organization with the enforcers on the ground, using local knowledge to recruit people and implement strategy.

Diego Molano Aponte, who served as Colombia's defense minister from 2021 to 2022, told the American newspaper that criminal organizations can only be dismantled by a comprehensive attack on the entire structure. "When you want to dismantle these organizations, you have to go to the king, you have to break up their illegal financial flows and hit multiple actors at all levels of the chain of command," Molano said.

Since the US began its war on drugs almost six decades ago, numerous drug lords have been arrested or killed, and some cartels have been dismantled.

Yet the number of people using drugs around the world has never been higher. According to a United Nations report released last year, an estimated 25 million people worldwide used cocaine in 2023, compared to 17 million a decade ago.