Mexico and the United States: a common front against the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel

Every year, on the first Saturday of May, a new edition of the Kentucky Derby takes place, a famous thoroughbred American horse race and considered, by some, as the most important horse race in the world due to its popularity and prestige. The event is attended by more than 150 thousand people and close to 15 million tune in from the comfort of their home. Many of the best Derby-winning equines were bred and trained at the famous Calumet Farm, a farm established in 1924 in the city of Lexington, in the same Bluegrass State[1].

A Mexican immigrant worked on that farm who, due to his punctuality, work ethic and his affability towards the equines, earned him praise from his supervisor and his co-workers; His name of him? Ciro Macias Martinez. None of them suspected that when he retired from the farm in the evenings, while the rest of the farm staff socialized over dinner or drinks, he was directing the flow of $30 million worth of heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, methamphetamine. and fentanyl from Mexico to Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky's two largest cities. From 2015 to April 2017, Ciro Macías led a double life, he was an exceptional worker as a horse caretaker and he was the leader of a cell of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG) in that state.[2]

This criminal organization has grown rapidly in less than a decade, expanding beyond border cities and large metropolitan areas in the United States. They have followed a strategy of expanding into cities and small towns, from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast, such as Hickory, North Carolina; Axton, Virginia; Omaha, Nebraska; and Gulfport, Mississippi; where the police forces are just as small and lack the resources to take on an international cartel. However, in the United States it operates in at least 35 states and in Puerto Rico.[3]

Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes alias "El Mencho" is the man who leads the CJNG. He is the most wanted person by the DEA, his head has a price of 10 million dollars. To satisfy the insatiable demand for narcotics from the Americans, El Mencho's organization is flooding the neighboring country with thousands of kilos of drugs and in Mexico it is fighting with other organizations to monopolize this market, control the transfer routes and dominate more territory. .

Since 2017, the administration of President Donald Trump has wanted Nemesio Oseguera behind bars, but he is one of the big bosses that remained pending capture in the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto. However, the United States has worked in conjunction with the latter's administration and that of current President López Obrador to dismantle the cartel.

In these six months, both countries have carried out coordinated activities to hit the CJNG, but it has counterattacked. Why is the CJNG one of the priority objectives of the United States and Mexico? What actions have you taken to dismantle it? Have the efforts to end the organization led by El Mencho really paid off? These are some of the questions that will be answered in the following lines.

A few months after the end of President Trump's administration, it is considered necessary to analyze and evaluate at least part of the bilateral security agenda of Mexico and the United States.

The CJNG as a threat to national security

Why do Mexico and the United States want to dismantle the CJNG? The National Security Strategy of the United States recognizes the cartel as a threat to its security, while the National Public Security Strategy of Mexico classifies organized crime[4] as one of the multiple risks and threats that threaten national security and as a generator of violence in the country.[5]

In the National Security Strategy of the United States, drug cartels are recognized within the wide range of threats that this country faces; The reasons for facing them are expressed in this way:

The United States must dedicate greater resources to dismantle transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and their subsidiary networks…Every day they deliver drugs to American communities, fuel gang violence, and engage in cybercrime. The illicit opioid epidemic, fueled by Chinese drug cartels and fentanyl traffickers, kills tens of thousands of Americans each year. These organizations also weaken our allies and partners by corrupting and undermining democratic institutions. Transnational criminal organizations are motivated by profit, power, and political influence.[6]

Likewise, four priority actions were listed to dismantle this type of organization:

1. Improve strategic planning and intelligence at the national level to enhance the ability of agencies to work together;
2. Increase support for public health efforts to stop the growth of drug use;
3. The leaders of criminal organizations and their structure will be targeted by US agencies and foreign partners;
4. Counter cybercriminals by disrupting their ability to operate in cyberspace with various measures.[7]

Priority actions 1 and 3 are the ones that will be analyzed, since they are of interest for the security and strategy areas.

Now, during the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto, the arrest of large drug lords and the atomization of some of them was achieved, but the CJNG was the organization that expanded and strengthened the most during that six-year term. What are the factors that explain this?

Strengthening of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel

According to Dr. Raúl Benitez Manaut "the CJNG is empowered by the change in the levels of power of the different criminal organizations in Mexico between 2010 and 2020"[8] and interprets it based on three processes:

1. The devaluation of Los Zetas between 2010 and 2014 and its subsequent fragmentation.
2. The weakening and atomization of the Michoacan Family and the Knights Templar due to the strategic coups of the government between 2013 and 2016.
3. The weakening of the Sinaloa Cartel due to the capture and extradition of El Chapo Guzmán and, currently, due to the internal division of the organization between the sons of El Chapo and Mayo Zambada.[9]

He also adds that the cartel took advantage of the devaluation of these organizations and filled the power gaps in some states.

In addition, Dr. Eduardo Guerrero considers that the temporary emergencies of the six-year term of Enrique Peña Nieto helped the CJNG to strengthen itself, since the attention of the State was directed to those emergencies: the disappearance of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa and the demonstrations of the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE).[10]

The CJNG, by controlling the ports of Manzanillo and Lázaro Cárdenas, took advantage of the opening of the fentanyl market in the United States, however, this sets off alerts in the US authorities. And with the drug cartels classified as threats to US national security, it was only a matter of time before the United States launched a coup against the cartel.

Actions

Accusations and rewards

Thanks to the efforts, information and intelligence of the United States Departments of Justice, State and Treasury with the FBI, DEA and the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force or OCDETF For its acronym in English), the then Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, designated, on October 15, 2018, the following criminal groups as the main threats of transnational organized crime to the United States: MS-13, Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Clan del Golfo and Hezbollah; and he announced the creation of a transnational organized crime task force with experienced prosecutors, whose purpose is to coordinate efforts and develop a plan to dismantle these organizations [11].

Just one day later, Jeff Sessions and the Justice, Treasury and State Departments announced coordinated efforts against the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, including the opening of 15 indictments against members of this organization, increased rewards for El Mencho from 5 to 10 million dollars for information leading to his apprehension and the offer of a 5 million dollar reward for Erik Valencia Salazar, former leader of the CJNG.[12] The attorney general spoke these words during the press conference in which the actions taken against the CJNG were announced:

We consider this cartel to be one of the five most dangerous transnational criminal organizations on the face of the Earth, and it is doing unimaginable harm to the people of this nation.

CJNG was founded only nine years ago, but it already has a presence in three quarters of all Mexican states, as well as in Europe, Asia and Australia. CJNG has a presence in cities across the United States: from San Diego to Omaha, Roanoke, New York and Orlando.

We believe they traffic at least five tons of cocaine and five tons of methamphetamine into the United States each month. We also believe that they are responsible for operating more than 100 methamphetamine laboratories in Mexico. These organizations must be confronted and defeated. Today we announce a government-wide effort against the CJNG. We are hitting them from all sides and with all the weapons we have.[13]

Scheme 1. Men accused of the CJNG by the United States

Source: Department of Justice https://www.justice.gov/file/1101016/download Note: At the time of announcing the indictments, these people were already arrested in the United States and sentenced or awaiting sentence: Carlos Parra Pedroza, Diego Pineda Sánchez alias El Botas, Jorge Manuel Cobián González and Oswaldo de Jesús Miramontes Díaz.

It seems that in the six-year term of Peña Nieto and during the beginning of the six-year term of López Obrador a solid and robust operation had not been undertaken against this cartel, some argue that a conjunctural crisis caused Mexico to change its position towards it.

Extradition of El Menchito

On November 4, 2019, an armed group attacked members of the LeBarón family -US citizens and Mormons residing in Mexico- when they were traveling in three trucks along the highway that borders between Chihuahua and Sonora, a territory disputed by the Sinaloa Cartel. and the band La Línea. Nine family members were shot dead, including children.

The community of US citizens who live and work between Mexico and the United States had already denounced that they were under threat by Mexican criminal organizations.

On November 24, Bryan Lebarón, on behalf of his family, requested through the White House petition portal that the United States government declare the Mexican drug cartels as "Foreign Terrorist Organizations."

Following the massacre, on November 26, 2020, US President Donald Trump said in an interview that he would designate Mexican cartels as terrorists for their role in drug and human trafficking. This caused great controversy in Mexico, since said designation would imply the possibility of some unilateral US measure that could violate Mexican sovereignty.

According to the journalist and columnist, Salvador García Soto, sources from the Mexican federal government assured that the López Obrador government made commitments to increase the fight against the drug cartel bosses and, especially, agreed to comply with two demands of President Donald Trump in exchange for his not designating the Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations, transmitted to the Mexican authorities through the United States Attorney General, William Barr, after his visit to Mexico in December 2019: expedite extradition and delivery of Rubén Oseguera González, El Menchito, son of the leader of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, who was imprisoned at that time in a maximum security zone at the Federal Center for Social Readaptation (Cefereso) number 11, in Hermosillo, Sonora, and to who claimed a Court of the District of Columbia for crimes of importation and distribution of narcotics; The second request is to consent to the integration of a special search and intelligence unit coordinated by both countries, with US intelligence and Mexican sailors, whose objective is to capture El Mencho. It also points out that the argument used by President Trump was that both Oseguera Sr. and Oseguera Jr. are part of the priority objectives of his government.[14]

The US attorney returned to Mexico in January of this year and met again with the Mexican president and with Marcelo Ebrard, Secretary of Foreign Relations. One month after the visit, El Menchito would be extradited to the United States. The one who was the second in command of the CJNG is one of the fifteen men on the list of the Department of Justice, something that had already been mentioned previously in this text. It should be noted that four of these men were already detained in the United States; Of the remaining eleven, four are still fugitives, one was assassinated in May 2019, another has been extradited during the administration of President López Obrador, and four are awaiting extradition.

Scheme 2. Current status of the fifteen accused by the United States

Note: Four of the fifteen people accused by the United States do not appear on this map, since, as mentioned above, they were already detained in that country awaiting sentencing or had already been sentenced.

Table 1. List of the fifteen men indicted by the US government in 2018 and their current status.

Source: self made.

Arrest of Jessica Oseguera

In another blow to the cartel, on February 25, 2020, Jessica Johana Oseguera González, daughter of El Mencho, was arrested in Washington. She is accused of money laundering through five front entities. As of now, she remains in US custody.

The extradition of El Menchito and the capture of Jessica Johanna Oseguera are believed to have weakened the CJNG, as the internal fight for the succession in the leadership of the cartel has begun between the second in command, Hugo Gonzalo Mendoza Gaytán known as El Sapo or 90 and Juan Carlos Valencia González known as El Cero Tres, El Tres or El Tercero, stepson of El Mencho. Since the arrest of the first two sons of Nemesio Oseguera, some members of the leadership of the organization and regional leaders have closed ranks with El Sapo.[15]

Python and Blue Agave Operations

In March of this year, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) managed to deal the biggest blow ever given to the CJNG: more than 500 members of the cartel were arrested in various parts of the United States. This was the result of the Python operation, a six-month investigation and operations effort focused on dismantling that organization.

Just two months after Python, 1,939 bank accounts of people[16] linked to the CJNG would be blocked after the Operation Agave Azul of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), headed by Santiago Nieto.

This operation carried out in Mexico is a continuation of the Python project[17], since the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), dependent on the Department of the Treasury, worked in coordination with the FIU, since it detected that a thousand 770 individuals and 167 companies had ties to the organization headed by El Mencho and to the Los Cuinis gang, the latter made up of the brothers of El Mencho's wife, who are considered the organization's financial operators.

While in the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto the bank accounts of organized crime were released, the work carried out by the Financial Intelligence Unit in the current administration is applaudable.[18]

Operation Crystal Shield

On September 10, 2020, United States Attorney General William Barr and Timothy J. Shea, Acting Director of the DEA, announced the results of the first six months of Operation Crystal Shield: the arrest of 1,840 individuals and seizures of more than 12 thousand 955 kilos of methamphetamine, 43 million dollars and 284 firearms. The main targets of the operation were Mexican drug cartels, including the CJNG and the Sinaloa Cartel.[19]

Atomization of the Anti-Union Force

Finally, the blows to the Anti-Union Force. Why this criminal organization? The CJNG managed to penetrate Mexico City through alliances with small local criminal groups, a well-established alliance was the one with the Anti-Union Force.

After various operations, their leaders and various members have been arrested and significant amounts of money have been confiscated. After which, several of its members have joined the CJNG.

And, furthermore, recently, on September 8, the Secretary of Citizen Security of Mexico City, Omar García Harfuch, assured that the Anti-Union Force and the Tepito Union are already fragmented cells, when in the past they were two of the criminal groups that dominated the Mexican capital.[20]

THE CJNG strikes back

Federal Judge and Secretary of Security

Villegas Ortiz, executed with at least twenty shots, had just been transferred to Colima by the Federal Judiciary on February 1st from Guadalajara where, as a district judge, in March 2018 he ordered the change of Rubén Oseguera González El Menchito, son of Nemesio Oseguera El Mencho, head of the violent Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG), from federal prison 13 in Oaxaca - where he was before being extradited to the United States - to prison 2 of the West in El Salto, Jalisco.

Last Thursday [June 11, 2020], in a meeting of the National Security cabinet, its participants listened to the recording of a telephone call between alleged hitmen of that criminal organization, intercepted by the National Intelligence Center (CNI), according to This column was confirmed by two different state security sources.

In the recording, whose authenticity -they say- was verified by the United States Anti-Narcotics Agency (DEA), the alleged hitmen speak, without mentioning names, of the preparation of a high-level attack. The sources consulted state that from the analysis of the situation made by the security cabinet, four possible targets were defined: Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, for having signed the extradition to the United States of El Menchito, which took place on Thursday, February 20; the director of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), Santiago Nieto, for the actions taken against the finances of the criminal organization; the CDMX security secretary, Omar García Harfuch for the blows inflicted on the cartel's drug dealing structures in the country's capital; and the federal secretary of Security, Alfonso Durazo, head of the government's anti-narcotics strategy.

As a result of this analysis, the protection and security of the four officials has been reinforced in recent days…[21]

Raúl Rodríguez Cortés wrote the above lines in his opinion column in the newspaper El Universal on June 17, 2020. This is important for two reasons:

1. He pointed out a possible relationship between the murder of Judge Uriel Villegas Ortiz - who had previously led proceedings for organized crime, drug trafficking, money laundering and fuel theft - and the CJNG, since Villegas Ortiz was the one who initiated one of the four legal proceedings that would lead to the extradition of El Menchito; Until now, the three suspects who broke into the judge's house on June 16 and murdered him and his wife are still in custody. Mexican federal authorities assure that they are members of the CJNG.
2. The leak of information, made public by the journalist, was the prelude to what would happen a week later.

On June 26, at approximately 6:38 a.m., Mexico City's security secretary, García Harfuch, suffered an attack when he had left his home and was on his way to meet the security cabinet meeting that supports every day with the head of government of this city in the City Hall Palace.

On social networks and in the news, videos and images of the moment of the attack could be seen, the number of shell casings fired, the bullets that managed to penetrate the houses surrounding the area, the firepower of the attackers, the the shooting that lasted twenty minutes in which, bravely, members of the Mexico City police managed to repel the attack and get the security secretary out alive.

Two members of his bodyguard team – they were also friends of his – lost their lives; a civilian woman, who was walking near the area of the attack, also died.

The attack against the head of the highest security body in the country's capital surprised Mexicans for the same reason that an attempt was made on the life of the security secretary of the most important economic and political entity in the country; Twenty-eight hitmen, equipped with weapons exclusively used by the army and tactical equipment, divided into four cells of seven people each, from various states of the republic -and one Colombian- were hired and transferred to the capital to carry out the attack. They had also calculated three different points where the attack would take place; The place where the attack was carried out was in the Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood, a space where various embassies are located in Mexico, one of the most exclusive and, therefore, guarded areas of the city; furthermore, no evidence was found of a similar attack against a security secretary in the capital in other years.

A month after the attack there were already more than 20 people arrested for it.

Organized Crime and Pandemic

During the first months of the pandemic, the Mexican cartels, from the Sinaloa Cartel to the Gulf Cartel, but, above all, El Mencho's organization, took the opportunity to deploy their soft power, because there where it is still difficult for the social programs from the Mexican government arrive, it sought to alleviate the social needs of the pandemic by delivering food pantries and lending money to small business owners in some states. They disseminated in local newspapers and on social networks their solidarity with the most needy population through videos and photographs where trucks and hooded men or ski-masks are seen delivering groceries with the CJNG logo to dozens of people trained in Veracruz, Jalisco, Colima, Guanajuato and even Guatemala.

This type of action poses a legitimacy problem for the current Mexican government, since organized crime strengthens its social base with this type of act.

In addition, they have recently managed to establish alliances with regional groups from Tierra Caliente in Michoacán, Guerrero and the State of Mexico, allowing them to increase their influence in the region, but not their dominance. In May, a new armed group called the Zicuirán Nueva Generación Cartel (CZNG) presented itself in a video posted on social media. They announced their alliance with the organization led by El Mencho and addressed a few words to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Michoacan Governor Silvano Aureoles and Alfonso Durazo, Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection.

InSight Crime's investigative team believes that while it is true that the CJNG is one of the most powerful criminal organizations in Mexico, it is still far from being the dominant group in the entire country, having been met with strong resistance. from well-established cartels or from local groups strongly rooted in certain communities. The type of territorial presence of the cartel is classified as dominant presence, influence and minimal presence; Accordingly, this cartel only controls Jalisco, Veracruz, Nayarit and some areas of Aguascalientes, Puebla, Querétaro, Tlaxcala and Guanajuato.[22]

Regarding the latter state, it is now believed that the CJNG will have a dominant presence following the arrest of José Antonio Yépez Ortiz Alias El Marro, leader of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel. The dispute between these organizations resulted in the transformation of the state of Guanajuato[23] as the most violent entity in Mexico.

And as if something were missing to add to these times of pandemic, the rumor of the death of Nemesio Oseguera spread.[24]

Conclusions

According to Dr. Raúl Benítez, the correct strategy that Mexico should follow against the CJNG is precisely the one it is carrying out with the United States. This is a comprehensive strategy that has not been limited to continuing solely with the Kingpin Strategy[25] and is being addressed by the CJNG on different fronts: they are understanding the problem of transnational organized crime as a global problem that requires global solutions and Therefore, the governments of these countries are working together with extraditions, exchange of information, cooperation between institutions; financially, the cartel's money is being followed and accounts are frozen; In addition, both countries are making arrests.

However, on the Mexican side, this will not be enough to deal with organized crime and the violence that prevails in the country, it will be necessary to strengthen the institutions in charge of imparting justice, such as the Attorney General's Office of the Republic and the public ministries; neutralize the corruption of security forces and public officials; address poverty and social inequality and promote a culture of addiction prevention.

The dismantling of the CJNG has taken time and will still take a little longer, but the balance so far is positive. The strategies of the Mexican and US governments are showing results.