A Historic Campaign and a Foretold Death
On February 22, 2026, the Mexican military eliminated Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes — known by the alias "El Mencho" — leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), during a campaign in the town of Tapalpa in Jalisco state. Oseguera Cervantes was wounded during the raid and died en route to Mexico City by helicopter. Four gunmen were shot on site, three others — including El Mencho himself — died afterward, and two were arrested.
This was not a random campaign. According to sources with access to intelligence information, the raid was the result of significantly expanded U.S.-Mexico intelligence cooperation under President Claudia Sheinbaum. The White House confirmed that the U.S. "provided intelligence" for the campaign, through the Joint Interagency Task Force-Counter Cartel under U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM). No American troops were directly on the ground — an important diplomatic detail allowing both sides to claim victory in their own ways.
Mike Vigil, former Director of the DEA's International Operations, called this "one of the most meaningful actions in the history of drug trafficking." Comparing El Mencho to Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán and Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada is not an exaggeration — CJNG under El Mencho's leadership became Mexico's most violent cartel over the past decade, and is the leading fentanyl supplier to the U.S. market.
CJNG: The Most Dangerous Cartel and the Fentanyl Empire
To understand the significance of this event, one must look back at CJNG's trajectory. The cartel was co-founded by El Mencho and Érick Valencia Salazar ("El 85") around 2007, breaking away from remnants of the Sinaloa Cartel and Millennium Cartel. While the Sinaloa Cartel — under El Chapo and later El Mayo — remains the most familiar name to the international public, CJNG has been the fastest-expanding force and most willing to employ military-scale violence at unprecedented levels.
CJNG pioneered attaching explosives to drones, laying mines along roads, attacking military helicopters, and even conducting grenade and heavy rifle assassinations in downtown Mexico City in 2020 targeting the capital's police director. This is not old-style drug gang — this is a paramilitary organization with genuine combat capacity.
More importantly to Americans: CJNG is the primary conduit for synthetic fentanyl into the United States. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), fentanyl — primarily manufactured from chemical precursors imported from China, then processed in clandestine labs in Mexico — kills approximately 70,000 Americans annually. CJNG and the Sinaloa Cartel split most of this market share. Eliminating El Mencho is cutting off the head of one of the two main branches supplying death across the southern border.
Valencia Salazar, CJNG's co-founder, was arrested and extradited to the U.S. in February 2025 during a sweep of 29 cartel leaders. Now, with El Mencho also removed, CJNG is losing its entire founding generation of leadership. The question is not whether the cartel will collapse — but how it will fragment and who will fill the power vacuum.
Post-Campaign Violence: Strength or Signs of Desperation?
CJNG's response to El Mencho's death played out like a familiar script: 252 roadblocks across Mexico, buses set on fire, Puerto Vallarta and Reynosa airports paralyzed, black smoke rising over Guadalajara — Mexico's second-largest city and the host city for the 2026 World Cup in just a few months.
But most notably: 25 members of Mexico's National Guard died in six separate attacks in Jalisco alone. This number shows that CJNG still has the capacity to coordinate large-scale military attacks even while losing its top leader.
Former DEA official Vigil analyzes that the roadblocks spread to Michoacán, Colima, Tamaulipas, Guanajuato, and Aguascalientes — far beyond CJNG's traditional territory — aimed at "proving that they remain a formidable force, that this was not a fatal blow." But another, more realistic reading: the very fact that they need to flaunt power so ostentatiously is a sign that CJNG fears its rivals — the Sinaloa Cartel, remnants of Los Zetas, and dozens of regional gangs — will see an opportunity to encroach.
Mexican history is filled with such precedents: when El Chapo was last arrested in 2016, the Sinaloa Cartel did not collapse but divided into factions. When Los Zetas cartel leader was eliminated, the organization fragmented into smaller gangs, violence did not decrease but increased as each group fought for territory. A similar scenario is very likely to repeat with CJNG.
A Test for the Trump-Sheinbaum Alliance
Geopolitically, El Mencho's death is an interesting test for the complex relationship between Washington and Mexico City. President Trump, just one day after the campaign, posted on social media demanding that Mexico "must increase efforts against cartels and drugs" — a criticism-tinged urging at precisely the moment that should have been a moment of praise.
This is Trump's familiar style: never let any partner feel they have done enough. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau was more diplomatic, calling it "a tremendous development for Mexico, the U.S., Latin America, and the world." But the difference in tone between Trump and his own diplomatic apparatus reflects internal tension in Washington's Mexico policy: wanting both tight intelligence cooperation and maximum public pressure.
For President Sheinbaum, this campaign is a double-edged sword. On one hand, eliminating the highest security target helps her solidify a tough image — particularly important as she seeks to escape the shadow of her predecessor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who pursued a controversial "hugs, not bullets" (abrazos, no balazos) policy that drew criticism from the U.S. On the other hand, 25 National Guard casualties and 252 roadblocks nationwide are not the image of "stable situation" that she is trying to build when she claims "most national territory is operating normally.
A View from the Vietnamese-American Community: Fentanyl, Borders, and Real Concerns
For Vietnamese-American readers, the El Mencho story is not something foreign across the border. It relates directly to daily life.
First, the fentanyl crisis has been and continues to devastate communities across America, including the Vietnamese-American community. In states like Texas, California, and Virginia — where Vietnamese populations are substantial — fentanyl infiltrates every layer of society, particularly through counterfeit pills sold on city streets. Many Vietnamese-American families in Houston, Little Saigon in Orange County, or San Jose have witnessed the consequences of this crisis within their own communities. Cutting off a major fentanyl supply head — if truly effective long-term — is news with practical significance.
Second, violence in border cities like Reynosa — across from McAllen, Texas — directly affects Vietnamese-American communities engaged in cross-border business activities. Many Vietnamese-owned nail salons, restaurants, and small businesses in the Rio Grande Valley depend on flows of goods and labor across international bridges. When cartel blockades close bridge access, economic impact spreads immediately.
Third, this event will further drive the political argument about border security — central to Trump's campaign and administration. For the Vietnamese-American community, which has diverse views on immigration but generally leans toward supporting stronger border control (according to AAPI Data's 2024 survey, about 55% of Vietnamese-American voters support increased border security), a successful anti-cartel campaign could further solidify support for the current administration's hardline policies.
Finally, the Puerto Vallarta story — where the airport was paralyzed, airlines canceled flights, and American tourists were ordered to shelter in place — is a direct reminder for Vietnamese-Americans who travel to Mexico. Puerto Vallarta, Cancún, and Los Cabos are popular destinations for Vietnamese families in California and Texas. A State Department security warning covering five Mexican states means many family vacation plans need to be reconsidered.
World Cup 2026: Security Specter Looming
One detail in the news easily overlooked but extremely important: Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco where vehicles burned chaotically in the streets, is one of the host cities for the 2026 World Cup. The tournament is scheduled to take place this summer across the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.
If CJNG — or its successor factions — continue violent reactions in coming months, the question of whether Mexico can guarantee security for World Cup matches will become acute. FIFA has bet heavily on the three-country co-hosting model, and any serious security incident would be a reputational disaster. Four soccer matches were already postponed on just the first day after the campaign — an ominous signal for the planet's biggest sporting event just months away.
Lessons from History: The "Kingpin Strategy" and the Violence Paradox
Security analysts have long debated the effectiveness of the so-called "kingpin strategy" — focusing on eliminating or capturing the top leader of a criminal organization. In theory, losing leadership weakens the organization. In Mexican practice, results are often the opposite.
When El Chapo was extradited to the U.S. in 2017, the Sinaloa Cartel split into at least four factions. Mexico's homicide rate rose to record levels in 2017-2019, peaking near 35,000 murders in 2019 — mostly related to factional conflict over territory. When Arturo Beltrán Leyva was eliminated in 2009, his cartel splintered into multiple pieces and violence in Guerrero and Morelos escalated for years.
There is no reason to believe CJNG will be an exception. Oseguera Cervantes has a powerful family — daughter Jessica Johanna and son Rubén, nicknamed "El Menchito" — but Menchito was already arrested and extradited to the U.S. Who will succeed him? Will there be internal conflict? Will rival cartels jump in to grab territory? All are viable scenarios, and all mean more violence, not less, at least in the short term.
This does not mean the campaign was useless. Eliminating El Mencho sends a clear signal that no one is untouchable. It creates leverage for Sheinbaum in negotiations with Washington. And it disrupts the command chain — at least temporarily — of the world's largest fentanyl trafficking organization. But the expectation that this is a "fatal blow" ending the cartel problem is a dangerous illusion.
Outlook: What's Next?
In the short term (coming weeks), violence in Jalisco and neighboring states will likely continue escalating before subsiding. CJNG will need time to reorganize, and in that vacuum, internal clashes and fights with outside rivals are unavoidable. The U.S. State Department has issued security warnings for five states — an unusually broad scope — indicating Washington assesses the situation as serious.
In the medium term, the fentanyl war will not end with El Mencho's death. The supply chain — precursors from China, manufacturing in Mexico, distribution across the U.S. border — remains intact. Transportation networks, labs, money laundering operations continue functioning. Cutting off the head of the snake does not kill the body.
In the long term, this event could mark a turning point in U.S.-Mexico cooperation under Sheinbaum — from the confrontational, mistrustful model of the López Obrador era to a model of tighter intelligence coordination. If this trend is sustained, it could produce more positive results than any single campaign. But domestic politics in both countries — Trump wanting a "victory" to tout, Sheinbaum needing to protect sovereignty against the left wing of the Morena party — can always derail everything.
El Mencho is dead. But the drug war — with all its ramifications for American communities, including Vietnamese-American communities — continues. As always, the real question is not "who was killed" but "what changed." And the most honest answer, based on two decades of Mexico's drug war, is: less than we hope.