The United States Marks Mexico's Priorities for Combating Drug Trafficking

The operation against the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación shows the path that the DEA wants to follow, pending the response of the Mexican Government

A Mexican military man armed with a bazooka patrols a bastion of the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación in 2016.

Among the nine fugitives most wanted by the United States anti-drug agency are four Mexicans. The DEA list reflects the transformation that the map of criminal organizations in Mexico has had in recent years.

It includes Ismael El Mayo Zambada, leader of the Sinaloa cartel; to another veteran leader of the organization, Rafael Caro Quintero; and Jesús Alfredo, one of the sons of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, who is considered the heir and main operator of his father, who was sentenced to life.

The fourth man has become the number one enemy of the Government of Mexico and, judging by the great operation carried out by DEA agents on Wednesday, with more than 200 detainees, Washington has also placed him at the center of their target. His name is Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, El Mencho, leader of the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG).

The organization was born in 2011 and is the last of the six major drug transnationals to be created (Sinaloa, Beltrán Leyva, Juárez, Golfo and Los Zetas). Since then it has grown rapidly in firepower and influence.

A couple of years ago, US intelligence calculated that the El Mencho group had a presence in 23 of the 32 states of Mexico, 75% of the territory. That coverage has been extended. “Now there are clearly two organizations, the CJNG, which has a presence in 31 states and the Sinaloa Cartel, with a presence in 23.

In addition to having surpassed Sinaloa, the CJNG is highly diversified. Now it is the most powerful cartel, with the greatest logistical capacity to move drugs to the United States, "says Eduardo Guerrero, a public security consultant.

Washington recognizes that the CJNG has quickly become the second most important actor in the trafficking of cocaine, methamphetamines, heroin and fentanyl in its territory, only behind the El Mayo Zambada criminal group.

The key to international expansion is the control of distribution centers in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Atlanta, where the substances crossed by border cities such as Tijuana (Baja California), Ciudad Juárez (Chihuahua) and Nuevo Laredo (Tamaulipas) arrive. , distributed along the more than 3,000 kilometers of common border.

“This is more an interest of the United States than of Mexico. It is setting an agenda, as in everything, as in the migration issue. Here we will be reacting to external influence ”, considers Eunice Rendón, an expert in security and who until last July was part of López Obrador's National Public Security System. Washington has made it clear that it has put strong pressure on the CJNG.

Whether the Mexican government responds on the ground remains to be seen.

It was possible to get an idea of ​​the penetration of the cartel in the United States after the operation carried out by the DEA this week, where it was revealed that the agency has detained 700 members of the organization in the last six months in the United States alone.

“It is a huge cartel, with a lot of ramifications in the USA. And when the Americans strike, they hit them like this, massive, to the entire logistical and financial structure. It is a forceful blow, serious, well worked, as they usually do. It is the way to weaken them, not grabbing one on one week and two the next ”, Eduardo Guerrero considers.

The key to the cartel's rapid growth is its willingness "to confront violently the Mexican Government forces and it’s rival organizations," according to an internal DEA report dated December 2019.

The CJNG has used force to take control of the main ports in the Mexican Pacific, where supplies and precursors arrive from Asia. He has attacked former officials and murdered secretaries of local governments, especially in his main stronghold, the State of Jalisco, the fourth most populous entity in the country.

It has also bribed and penetrated regional administrations, which has led the Army and the federal government to disarm nearly a thousand policemen on suspicion of working for El Mencho. Oseguera Cervantes was even arrested in 2012 in Jalisco, but the state authorities decided to release him.

The corrupting power of drug trafficking is usually maintained at local levels, where territorial control is ensured. This cartel, however, has also touched the federal spheres. The Prosecutor's Office arrested Isidro Avelar, a federal judge with more than 20 years in the judiciary, in November 2019.

The Mexican authorities found in his bank accounts 50 million pesos, 2.2 million dollars. 12 million pesos, more than half a million dollars, were paid to him in 2011. Four years later, the magistrate released, inexplicably according to the government of Enrique Peña Nieto, Rubén Oseguera González, El Menchito, son of the CJNG leader.

El Menchito was recaptured in 2015 by the Army and Navy. In February of this year, the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador turned him over to the United States justice after a very long extradition trial in which the drug trafficker's son did everything possible to stay in Mexico.

The extradition policy is for the Mexican Executive the main tool to combat organized crime leaders. El Menchito is the second son of Oseguera Cervantes to await a trial in the United States. Jessica Johana Oseguera González was detained in February by US authorities. That same month, Mexico sent two other operators of the organization to the states of Virginia and California to stand trial.

Sol Prendido Borderland Beat

https://elpais.com/internacional/2020-03-16/estados-unidos-marca-a-mexico-sus-prioridades-de-combate-al-narcotrafico.html