"El Mencho" the deportee who became the bloodiest narco trafficker

Ruben or Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, nicknamed "El Mencho" is the new face in the most wanted list on the governments of Mexico and the United States after the recapture of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and has already been designated as public enemy number one.

Born on July 17, 1966 amid the poverty of a village in Michoacan, he did not finish elementary school, and grew up cultivating avocados to then migrate to California and was then deported for his involvement on a heroin distribution network, is today the most bloodthirsty drug trafficker of Mexico.

Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, has adopted the name of Nemesio in honor of his godfather and is best known as "El Mencho" leader of the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) which has cells operating in twelve states of Mexico.

At the age of 25, Ruben (or Nemesio) Oseguera Cervantes was arrested in Sacramento with his brother Abraham, both accused of participating in a criminal network that distributed heroin in the northern region of California, according to court documents reviewed by Univisión Los Angeles.

The year was 1992 and the agreement reached with prosecutors to plead guilty represented sentences of 5 years to Ruben and 10 for Abraham.

After his three-year of sentence, "El Mencho" was paroled and deported.

During the 80 "El Mencho" had crossed the border into the United States as an illegal immigrant and used different names each time he was detained, such as "Ruben Avila", "Jose Lopez Prieto," "Miguel Valadez", "Carlos Hernandez Mendoza" and "Roberto Salgado," among other combinations of names and surnames.

During that time "El Mencho" was already part of the criminal organization headed by the Valencia brothers and later became known as the "Cártel Milenio" Millennium Cartel.

"El Mencho" and Abigael González Valencia "El Cachetes", one of the leaders of the cartel, began working together on the methamphetamine business when both lived in California.

Later "El Mencho" marry a sister of the Valencia to strengthen their relationship with "Los Cuinis", the group responsible for the financial operations of the criminal organization that later became the CJNG.

The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has ranked "The Cuinis" as one of the richest drug cartel in the world for its connections with Europe and Asia.

The latest indictment filed in a court in Washington D.C. against "El Mencho" and "El Cachetes" notes that they have connections to traffic methamphetamine in Australia.

Specialists on security issues have named, "El Mencho" as public enemy number one, the new face of drug trafficking in Mexico after the recapture of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

"Today is the most powerful crime boss in Mexico," says Tristan Reed, an analyst for Stratfor, an intelligence firm on global security issues.

Everard Meade, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego, believes that this is a criminal entrepreneur who has used terror as a means of establishing their trade relations, eliminating in the most brutal possible ways anyone who gets in their path.

The terror of the new generation

During the time he lived in California and in the nearly three years he spent in prison, "El Mencho" would befriend gang members and years later would recruit them to join his armed wing of CJNG, which has been characterized for acts of extreme violence.

Statements that have been reported by some of the CJNG members who have been arrested have said that "El Mencho" is a ruthless man who does not tolerate disobedience and likes to be asked for forgiveness when he's going to kill someone.

One of the most heinous acts that will be remembered in the history of drug trafficking, and was attributed to CJNG, was on September 20, 2011, when they left the bodies of 12 women and 23 men outside a shopping center in Boca del Rio, Veracruz, as a message to the rival group Los Zetas.

The then authors of that barbarism called "Los Mata Zetas" posted a video in which they presented themselves as "the people's armed wing" which prohibits its members to do extortion, kidnapping, robbery and humiliation, they also said to have respect for the armed forces and they condemn corrupt public servants.

Later on CJNG will declare war on the Knights Templar "Caballeros Templarios" of Servando Gomez Martinez, "La Tuta", by supporting a group of "autodefensas" paramilitaries linked to Michoacan cartel Los Viagras legitimated by the government of Enrique Peña Nieto.

Another violent episodes was an attack by "El Mencho's" hitmen on May 1, 2015, when the city of Guadalajara (the country's third largest) was besieged by the CJNG where vehicles, banks and gas stations were set on fire to block roads and prevent a military operation. On that occasion they also shot down an army helicopter with a grenade launcher, killing three soldiers.

"El Mencho's" hitmen are also linked to executions of public officials and political figures like Silverio Cavazos, who was governor of Colima from 2005-2009, and was killed on November 2010.

The influence of CJNG

The states believed to have the presence of this criminal group are Jalisco, Colima, Michoacan, Veracruz, Mexico City, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Guanajuato, Morelos, Nayarit, Quintana Roo, and Baja California.

This article was translated from Univision Noticias