Who Was 'El Mencho', Mexico's Most Wanted Drug Lord With $15 Million Bounty

Mexico's most wanted man and the leader of the feared drug cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) has been killed in a military operation to arrest him. Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, also known as "El Mencho," was wanted by US authorities, who offered a bounty of up to $15 million for information leading to his arrest or capture, according to media reports. 

El Mencho was wounded in an operation to capture him on Sunday in Tapalpa, Jalisco, about a two-hour drive southwest of Guadalajara. He died while being flown to Mexico City, Mexico's Defence Department said in a statement. 

The operation to capture the CJNG chief was the Mexican government's biggest effort yet to show the Trump administration its intention to crack down on the cartels and was met with a forceful reaction from the cartel. Cars burnt out by CJNG members blocked roads in nearly a dozen Mexican states and left smoke billowing into the air. 

Reuters

Jalisco's capital, Guadalajara, was turned into a ghost town after the drug lord's death as civilians hunkered down. The state is the base of the cartel—one of Mexico's most powerful-- known for trafficking huge quantities of fentanyl and other drugs to the United States. The violence led to schools being closed on Monday in several states.

🚨🇲🇽 Armed clashes erupt with federal agents in Mexico

Violence spreads following the death of El Mencho, leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, with social media footage showing running battles between armed groups and law enforcement in western states. pic.twitter.com/FgYgIDWAPQ

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) February 23, 2026

Who Was El Mencho

An ex-police officer, Cervantes, 60, was infamous for the bloody trail of bodies he left behind in battles with government forces and rival gangs. Cervantes was born in 1966 in a poor village in the mountains of the notoriously lawless western state of Michoacan, where cultivation of opium poppies and marijuana has competed with avocado production for decades. He used to work in fields cultivating avocados before going to seek his fortune in the US, where prosecutors said he got into the heroin trade. 

Cervantes was arrested in the US, where he served time in prison for a few years before being deported back to Mexico. Once back home, Cervantes joined the police before entering the Milenio Cartel, a satellite of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Eventually, he became a top enforcer after stints as a sicario, or cartel assassin. He tried to take over the Milenio Cartel, but after failing to do so, he struck out alone and declared war on Sinaloa by founding the CJNG in alliance with a local gang of money launderers.

Cervantes was widely known by his alias "El Mencho", a nickname that derives from the phonetic derivation of Nemesio. Another nickname is "The Lord of the Roosters", said to be derived from his love for cockfighting.

His cartel is named for the western state of Jalisco, home to one of Mexico's largest cities, Guadalajara. Over the years, the cartel has been blamed for smuggling vast quantities of drugs into the US, including the synthetic opioid fentanyl, which has been linked to hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths in recent years. 

The CJNG mixed Sinaloa-style drug trafficking and community outreach with the ultra-violent methods of the Zetas Cartel, a gang that used paramilitary tactics to diversify into criminal enterprises such as extortion and kidnapping.

In a relatively short period of time, Cervantes masterminded the CJNG's emergence as a criminal empire rivalling his former allies in the Sinaloa Cartel. He managed to evade arrest for years despite a $15 million bounty from the US. 

Reuters

Arguably Mexico's most influential crime boss after captured kingpin Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, now in a US prison, Cervantes diversified into rackets such as stolen fuel, forced labor and human trafficking. But unlike Guzman, who became a media celebrity, El Mencho preferred to remain in relative obscurity. He achieved notoriety for expletive-laden recordings leaked on social media in which he threatened enemies and officials.

Past Failed Capture Attempts

Cervantes was also known for evading capture in spectacular fashion. For years, he paid off police to cover his back as he operated with near-total impunity inside Jalisco. He also sought political protection.

In May 2015, as Mexican forces closed in on him, his tipped-off henchmen shot down a military helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade to give their boss time to escape. 

"El Mencho's Jalisco New Generation Cartel was one of the biggest buyers of politicians and political campaigns, which has given it an enormous social base," said Edgardo Buscaglia, an organized crime expert at Columbia University.

Noting El Mencho's ability to win public support, Buscaglia pointed to footage broadcast during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic of people lining up for CJNG-stamped food packages handed out by cartel gunmen, not government workers, to help cushion the economic blow of lockdowns.

"Compared to the Mexican government," said Buscaglia, "he was the least bad option."

Beheading

Targets of his hitmen were rarely so lucky. His gang routinely employed beheadings and other gory means of intimidation. In one six-week period in 2015, the gang killed two dozen police in western Mexico as a warning to authorities.

In 2020, Mexico City's then chief of police, Omar Garcia Harfuch, survived an assassination attempt that killed two of his bodyguards in an attack authorities blamed on the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Harfuch is now the country's security chief and helped oversee the operation against Cervantes.

"Apart from the heads of the Sinaloa cartel, 'El Mencho' has been the biggest prize for many, many years," said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a security expert and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. 

"And it's really stunning, just like the heads of the Sinaloa cartel, how long he managed to evade U.S. and Mexican law enforcement gunning for him."