Inside Mexico's Decision to Take Down a Drug Lord

0:05Ryan Knutson:On Sunday, Mexican authorities killed one of the world's most powerful drug lords. Violence has erupted across Mexico following the killing of the country's most wanted drug leader known as El Mencho.

0:19Claudia Sheinbaum:It happened in Tapalpa, Jalisco, about a two-hour drive southwest of Guadalajara. — Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes was the leader of the powerful Jalisco New Generation cartel,

0:28Ryan Knutson:a major trafficker of drugs into the U.S. — His name was Nemesio Oseguera, and he was known as El Mencho. After news spread of his death, his cartel retaliated across much of the country.

0:42Claudia Sheinbaum:— Fire, smoke, and chaos across several Mexican states.

0:47José De Córdoba:— There were roadblocks made of cars that were seized by gunmen and then set on fire. And some 50 people died. More than 50 people died.

0:59Claudia Sheinbaum:Blocked highways. Drivers forced out of their cars at gunpoint.

1:03José De Córdoba:You know, it was a very scary moment for the country.

1:09Ryan Knutson:That's our colleague Jose de Córdoba, who's based in Mexico City. Were you surprised when you saw that Mexican authorities had taken down El Mencho?

1:19José De Córdoba:Yes, it was a big surprise. Because El Mencho has been seen by everybody as too big and too powerful to fall. So because he is so powerful and has operations in so many places, many people feared that capturing or killing him would be like hitting a bee's nest in the sense that it would cause a really violent reaction in lots of places in Mexico, which in a sense is what happened. Now, people are afraid that with Mencho's death, that will set the stage for a lot of violence as his lieutenants fight to succeed him.

2:05Ryan Knutson:Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knudsen. It's Wednesday, February 25th.

2:18Ryan Knutson:Coming up on the show, the death of Mexico's most powerful drug lord.

2:37Ryan Knutson:So, Jose, you were on our podcast a few months ago talking about the rise of El Mencho. Can you refresh our memory? Who is he and how did he come to power?

2:46José De Córdoba:El Mencho is a former Mexican cop who actually lived in the U.S. illegally for a number of years and then was deported back to Mexico and joined the police force of a town. And there he married to the curtail and made his way up the chain.

3:08Ryan Knutson:— By the early 2010s, El Mencho had risen to become the head of the Jalisco New Generation cartel. Over the next few years, his cartel became the main rival to the Sinaloa cartel, which was headed up by the infamous El Chapo. But after El Chapo's arrest in 2016, the Sinaloa cartel fractured, and El Mencho seized power. How far-reaching was his empire? What did he control?

3:34José De Córdoba:The heart of his empire is the Jalisco cartel in the state of Jalisco, where the state capital is Guadalajara, one of Mexico's most important cities. He was sort of a shadow government in that state. I'm told that nothing moved without his knowing about it and giving the say-so. But his operations stretched across the country in, you know, in something like two-thirds of the states in Mexico. He had operations in something like 30 foreign countries.

4:09Ryan Knutson:Almencho's cartel became the world's top trafficker of cocaine, according to U.S. and Mexican authorities. The cartel would transport the drugs by the ton from Colombia to Ecuador and then north to Mexico by speedboats and semi-submersibles. But becoming the biggest drug lord brings a lot of attention.

4:27José De Córdoba:The Trump administration has put unrelenting pressure on the Mexican government to go after drug cartels ever since Trump assumed the presidency the second time around. He's threatened and imposed tariffs on Mexican goods and basically said that the reason he was doing so was because Mexico was a threat to the United States.

4:51Claudia Sheinbaum:The cartels are waging war on America, and it's time for America to wage war on the cartels.

4:58Ryan Knutson:At the start of his second term, President Trump designated drug cartels a terrorist organization, which analysts say can open the door for direct U.S. military action.

5:08José De Córdoba:Trump has, I think, on most phone calls that he's had with Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum, He's offered to have American troops come in and do either joint operations or solo operations in Mexico.

5:24Ryan Knutson:Jose says that for Mexico, attention from the Trump administration is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, U.S. intelligence, training, and equipment is helpful. But Mexican authorities also want to maintain autonomy.

5:37José De Córdoba:You have to remember that Mexico lost half of its territory in the 19th century to the United States in the Mexican-American War. So there's a long history of U.S. interference in Mexico's domestic affairs that Mexico does not like. So Scheinbaum is playing a very difficult game because she wants to stop at all costs a U.S. intrusion here.

6:07Ryan Knutson:Still, Mexican authorities decided to work with U.S. intelligence agencies to monitor El Mencho. And over the last few months, they had a breakthrough.

6:16José De Córdoba:Mexican intelligence had been tracking El Mencho's associates, and they tracked a person who was close to one of his lovers and who delivered the lover to this hideaway where they suspected Mencho was at.

6:32Ryan Knutson:So they were following somebody that happened to deliver a mistress to El Mencho.

6:37José De Córdoba:Yes. And when Mencho came out and greeted her, they figured that he was there and then set in motion this raid.

6:49Ryan Knutson:The raid happened in Tapalpa, a town in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Jalisco, just a couple hours south of Guadalajara.

6:58José De Córdoba:It's a very beautiful mountain town, colonial town, with a 17th century Jesuit church among the mountains and pine forests. But the battle took place in this place with the cabins about two miles from the town.

7:14Ryan Knutson:Dozens of heavily armed soldiers, armored military vehicles, drones, and combat helicopters descended onto the normally quiet town. — They hit this place really early in the morning.

7:27José De Córdoba:There was a firefight that went on for about five hours, in which, against these very heavily armed bodyguards, Mencho and two others were wounded and taken on a plane where they died on the way to the hospital.

7:43Ryan Knutson:— After that, the Jalisco cartel started its violent rampage across the country. The cartel responds by carjacking cars and setting them on fire.

7:54José De Córdoba:They set 252 fires or roadblocks in 20 Mexican states. And so, you know, they basically disrupted the whole country, causing, you know, schools to close, people to stay indoors and sit it out. So, yes, it was quite a shock.

8:19Why did the cartel do this?

8:22Ryan Knutson:Why create all this chaos?

8:24José De Córdoba:They wanted to show, you know, the government that they were forced to contend with.

8:30Ryan Knutson:Jose says that the Jalisco cartel will also likely start fighting internally.

8:35José De Córdoba:I mean, there are about three of his lieutenants who could be contenders to follow him. They don't like each other much. So everyone is expecting a battle to succeed Mencho. Everyone is expecting, you know, a lot of violence as these possible successors fight for the leadership position.

8:59Ryan Knutson:So is the potential for more violence something that Mexican authorities anticipated?

9:04José De Córdoba:I think historically they've gone after cartel bosses who become too big. You know, this is known as the kingpin strategy. You go after the top guy. But the problem is that when you do that, a lot of the time that results in a lot of violence. Because what you have is that the lieutenants of that organization fight to get control, to replace the guy who's just been captured or killed. And the result is a lot of killings. If you look at Sinaloa, for instance, when El Mayo Zambada, one of the main leaders, was kidnapped by another leader, that set off a civil war in which 2 ,000 people have been killed and 3 ,000 people have disappeared and the army has really been unable to stop that violence.

10:00Ryan Knutson:Mexican authorities said Monday that they deployed thousands of soldiers to restore calm and prevent violence The country's security minister also said that if the military is able to capture those who head the cartel's different armed units then the risk of a major outbreak of violence would go down Coming up what El Mencho's death might mean for the drug trade