CJNG 'Invades' CDMX: This Is How it Has Declared War On The Capital City

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

In recent years several events have been registered in the country's capital, which are related to the Mencho cartel.

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Mexico City is considered one of the safest cities in the world; however, the tranquility it boasts has been obscured by the expansion of organized crime, with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), one of the cells that has been gradually invading the capital and has even declared war on it.

This criminal organization was founded in 2007 as an armed wing, under the name of Los Mata Zetas; however, the group became independent three years later and a new one was born in 2011, led by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias 'El Mencho'.

His alliances and power soon allowed him to become one of the most dangerous groups in Mexico and the main rival of the Sinaloa Cartel for the control of plazas and territories in the country. As well as in the demand and movement of national and international drugs, which led to a war between the two organizations.

The growth of the CJNG is not only easily seen by Mexican authorities, but also by international agencies, such as the United States Congressional Research Service, which in a report released in August of last year, stated that the Mencho cartel is present in 28 of the 32 states in the country.

For its part, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) considers it to be a major threat to the US and describes it as the best-armed criminal group in Mexico; the government of Donald Trump even placed it among "the five most dangerous criminal organizations in the world," which also includes the Islamic State (IS).

CJNG declares war on the CDMX

Mexico City has not been exempt from the presence of various cartels, according to information from the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena), after the hacking of Guacamaya Leaks, it was learned that the Jalisco New Generation Cartel has a presence in the municipality of Gustavo A. Madero (GAM) and its leader is Omar Ramses, alias 'El Calaca'.

However, although the criminal group operates mostly in the GAM, it has also been involved in threats in the districts of Tlalpan and Álvaro Obregón, according to information from Sedena.

It should be noted that Sergio Flores Concha, alias 'El Tortas', founder of the Anti Union Tepito cartel, who met Oseguera Cervantes' men when he was in prison, was the connect to dominate the country's capital. This is how he asked the CJNG for help to exterminate the Union Tepito, as leaders of this group, of which he was also a member, ordered the murder of his brother.

How the CJNG has shown its presence in the CDMX

Although the Mencho cartel initially kept a low profile, as it only used the country's capital as a financial center, the fracture of the Tepito Union helped it to begin its plan to conquer the CDMX, which led it to be behind several events that have set off alarm bells for the capital's authorities.

One of them occurred in July 2019, where a hitman of the Jalisco Cartel identified as Mauricio Hiram Suarez, alias 'El Mawicho', was one of the masterminds of the murder of two Israeli citizens, which occurred in a restaurant in Plaza Artz Pedregal.

The following year, Mexico City experienced one of the most violent episodes, the attempted assassination of Omar García Harfuch, head of the Secretariat of Citizen Security, whose perpetrators were members of the CJNG, according to the official himself.

The attack occurred on June 26, 2020, around 6:35 a.m. at Paseo de la Reforma and Monte Blanco, and left three people dead, two bodyguards of the chief of the capital police and a woman who was driving in the area, as well as 19 people arrested.

Two years later, a new attack was registered in the country's capital, this time against journalist Ciro Gómez Leyva, which occurred on December 15, 2022, and authorities are still investigating whether the Jalisco New Generation Cartel is behind the attack.

This is due to the fact that the criminal organization would have been the one who ordered the attack, according to information provided by the six subjects arrested, who are allegedly members of another group called Los Malcriados 3AD; although the capital authorities have not yet confirmed the responsibility of the Jalisco cartel in these events.

All of the above is in addition to recent events, one of which occurred last Wednesday, where elements of the Mexico City Attorney General's Office, the Secretary of the Navy and the National Guard uncovered a criminal network of the company Black Wall Street Capital, in the Anzures neighborhood, which is allegedly linked to an armed wing of the CJNG.

According to the Mexico City prosecutor's office, the uniformed officers carried out a search of the property where they offered advisory services to investors for the crimes of money laundering and crimes against health, through the commercialization of narcotics.

As a result of the raid, the authorities seized two boxes with a solid substance, small arms, long arms and approximately 168 thousand dollars in cash. In addition, five men were arrested, two of them of foreign origin.

Finally, this Friday, authorities in Mexico City arrested seven alleged criminals, who claimed to be members of the CJNG after a chase that began in the State of Mexico and ended in Mexico City, in the Álvaro Obregón district.

According to what was reported by the Secretary of Security, Omar García Harfuch, in an interview with Joaquín López-Dóriga for Radio Fórmula, the subjects "wear insignias of the Jalisco Cartel, they wear vests, they wear caps, they wear other insignias that allude to this criminal group".

The chase was the result of an operation to rescue four people who were abducted, during the spree, three policemen were killed, one criminal was killed and seven subjects were arrested, including a man nicknamed 'El Lagarto', originally from Guadalajara, Jalisco and alleged leader of the criminal cell.

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