U.S. and Mexican officials have placed a multi-million dollar bounty on the leader of the Cartel Jalisco Nuevo Generacion (CJNG), Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, also known as “El Mencho.”
The announcement was made last week at a press conference launching the creation of a new Chicago-based U.S./Mexican law enforcement group to target top drug cartel criminals.
The CJNG is an offshoot of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel that has rapidly developed from a regional crime organization into an international player. Oseguera’s standing has risen exponentially since Guzman’s arrest and extradition to the United States and he is now considered the “world’s most wanted drug capo.”
Oseguera, 52, was jailed briefly in the United States in the 1990s for drug dealing and subsequently deported. Back in Mexico, he rose to prominence as local cartels battled for control of the Jalisco, Colima and Nayarit drug trade routes. Originally concentrating on the distribution and export of methamphetamine, the CJNG has now expanded into marijuana, cocaine and heroin.
Know for its violent methods, the CJNG has been involved in multiple confrontations with law enforcement in Jalisco in recent years. It is also responsible for various “narcobloqueos” (the seizing and burning of buses and vehicles), including one in May that resulted in the deaths of a mother and her infant boy (see story on page one).