Federal Government closes the circle on El Mencho, he has been detected in Nayarit

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from an El Universal article and image from Epoca Violenta

Subject Matter: Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, El Mencho
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

The Marines, Army and PGR have detained six direct collaborators of El Mencho, though the CJNG remains strong, it is not known how much financial debilitation the cartel has suffered.

Reporter: Manuel Espino Bucio
The Marines, the Army and the PGR are closing the circle on the top boss of the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, El Mencho, whose movements have been detected in Nayarit, as well as on the outskirts of Jalisco and Michoacan.


With the detention of his wife, Rosalinda Gonzalez Valencia, Gerardo Botello Rosales, El Cachas, plaza boss for Michoacan and Guanajuato, and Juan Jose Farias Alvarez, El Abuelo, Jose Gutierrez Ochoa, El Senor de la TT, in law of Ruben Oseguera, El Menchito, and Jorge Luis Sierra Estrada, El Orejon, compadre of El Mencho, it makes six direct collaborators of the capo detained by the Federal forces in the last year.

This past week, Javier Valle Brawnt, El Peque was detained, considered the principal provider of precursor chemicals for the organization. In the primary family circle of El Mencho, as well as his wife, his son Ruben Oseguera Gonzalez has been detained since June of 2015.




"CJNG" is still strong", although El Mencho has taken hits to his close circle of collaborators, the criminal organization he leads has not been weakened by Federal authorities, said Guillermo Garduno, researcher at the Autonomous Metropolitan University.

For the expert on national security and the armed forces, the government has not fought the financial structures of the cartel, which keeps it as the group with the most firepower and the only one that has directly faced down the army.

"I do not think it has been weakened with the last arrests, because we must take into account that they are the only criminal group that has faced the army and unfortunately shot down a helicopter, with high powered weapons, which suggests that they are not weakened", he said.

The academic considered that the Federal government is currently carrying out urgent actions against the criminal organization, which has grown rapidly in recent years. "There is a panorama of violence in the country and an electoral moment that makes the situation more serious", he said.

In April, after the arrest of the presumed accountant of the cartel, the person in charge of the PGR's office, Alberto Elias Beltran, states that in a month and half, 23 operators of the criminal organization had been arrested, among them the Colombian Mauricio Varela Reyes, El Manotas, with which they have delivered heavy blows to the cartel.

The security cabinet has information that Oseguera Cervantes moves in the Sierra de Naranjo de Chila, belonging to the municipality of Aguililla, located in the Tierra Caliente, Michoacan, from where he originates, and in regions of Tepalcatepec, adjacent to Jalisco, with protection of the local police and the followers of the former autodefensa leader Juan Jose Farias Alvarez, El Abuelo, and Miguel Angel Gallegos Godoy, Migueladas or Mr. de Zicuiran.

El Mencho is there, and nowhere is safer, confirmed a former local official, who noted at the time that El Abuelo and now Martin Barragan, El Mano Cortitas, uses the people to prevent incursions of the Federal and local forces in the town of Tepalcatepec.

The cabinet report said that the operators of the Michoacano capo use the dam of Chilatan, located in the Tepalcatepec river to move drugs to the Jaliscan highlands. Last March, elements of the Mexican Navy met in the highlands of Jalisco with a group of Michoacan drug traffickers, among them Miguel Angel Gallegos, El Migueladas, plaza boss of La Huacana and Nueva Italia; Juan Jose Farias Alvarez, El Abuelo, plaza boss for Tepalcatepec; Homero Gonzalez, El Gallito, leader of the last group of the Caballero Templarios, who instructed them to take control of the municipalities of Apatzingan, Buenavista Tomatlan and Antunez, held by Los Viagras and its armed wing, La neuva Familia Michoacana.