On the menu today: God help you if you’re trying to get out of the Mexican state of Jalisco this morning. Today, a deep dive into the predations and terror of the New Generation Cartel of Jalisco and the U.S. role in the Mexican raid that killed the cartel’s kingpin. Elsewhere, the Washington Post checks in on the health of former President Joe Biden.
Disaster South of the Border
This morning, the Mexican state of Jalisco is burning, set afire by the raging members of the New Generation Cartel of Jalisco.
Josh Jones, a senior fellow in border security at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, writing at National Review, way back in 2021:
The state of Guanajuato sits along one of those [illegal drug] transportation routes. Mexico’s two largest criminal organizations, the Sinaloa Federation and the New Generation Cartel of Jalisco, commonly known as CJNG, are at war with each other for control of Guanajuato. High-ranking operatives of the Central American gang MS-13 have likewise settled in the state, strategically positioning themselves to coordinate human-smuggling operations across Mexico. Guanajuato is controlled entirely by organized crime, and it is not the only such state in Mexico. Estimates of the percentage of Mexican territory controlled by criminal organizations range from 20 percent to 80 percent.
The state of Jalisco sits on Mexico’s west coast and is adjacent to Guanajuato, which is further inland. Jalisco is home to more than 8 million people and two communities with a significant number of American expats — Puerto Vallarta and Lake Chapala.
A good history of the cartel can be found here. Among the “highlights”:
Mexican security forces killed former Sinaloa Cartel capo Ignacio Coronel, alias “Nacho,” in July 2010. . . .
By the time of Coronel’s death, El Lobo had been captured and the Milenio Cartel had suffered internal divisions, splitting into two factions: the “Resistencia,” and another known as the “Torcidos,” or “Twisted Ones,” because the Resistencia accused them of giving up El Lobo to the authorities.
In the power vacuum that followed Coronel’s death, these two factions fought for control of drug trafficking in Jalisco. The Torcidos became what is now the CJNG, emerging as the successors to the Sinaloan capo’s network in the region.
Former police officer Nemesio Oseguera Ramos, alias “El Mencho,” is considered the leader and founder of the CJNG. . . .
The group has been associated with the use of extreme violence. In the period following the CJNG’s emergence, homicides, forced disappearances, and the discoveries of mass graves spiked in Jalisco. The cartel also made it one of its early missions to battle the Zetas drug trafficking organization in Veracruz, under the name “Matazetas,” or “Zetas Killers. . . .”
In 2023, Anne Milgram, the administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, told Congress, “The Jalisco Cartel maintains illicit drug distribution hubs in Los Angeles, Seattle, Charlotte, Chicago, and Atlanta. Internationally, the Jalisco Cartel has a presence and influence through associates, facilitators, and brokers on every continent except Antarctica.”
Back on February 6, 2025, the Trump administration designated several Mexican cartels “foreign terrorist organizations,” including the New Generation Cartel of Jalisco, as well as MS-13 (also known as Mara Salvatrucha), Tren de Aragua, the Sinaloa Cartel, Los Zetas, the United Cartels, the Northeast Cartel, and Cartel del Golfo.
Also, in a little-noticed move this January, the Pentagon established the “Joint Interagency Task Force-Counter Cartel under U.S. Northern Command,” calling it “the next step in the whole-of-government approach to identify, disrupt, and dismantle cartel operations posing a threat to the United States along the U.S.-Mexico border.”
The good news is the cartel kingpin, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, a.k.a. “El Mencho,” is no longer with us. From the New York Times:
Mexican security forces on Sunday captured Mr. Oseguera in Tapalpa, a town of about 20,000, in the western coastal state of Jalisco, where his cartel was founded and based, the government said in a statement. Mr. Oseguera was injured in the operation and died while in transport to Mexico City for medical attention, according to the government. At least nine other cartel members were killed.
The U.S. official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, did not offer further details on any information that the U.S.-military-led task force may have offered Mexican authorities. The official stressed the raid itself was a Mexican military operation.
A former U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity without referring specifically to the task force, said the U.S. compiled a detailed target package for El Mencho and provided it to the Mexican government for its operation.
This detailed dossier included information provided by U.S. law enforcement and U.S. intelligence, the former official said.
The former official added El Mencho was very high, if not at the top, of a list of U.S. targets in Mexico.
The even better news is that despite the obvious tensions between President Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, it appears that the U.S. and the Mexican government are successfully working together on operations like these, with the Mexicans taking the lead in their own territory.
The bad news is that the rest of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel have chosen to respond by burning everything to the ground. The Wall Street Journal, reporting from on the ground in Puerto Vallarta:
The city of 600,000, with its white stucco buildings and palm-lined streets, looked something like a war zone. Plumes of black smoke billowed into the sky. Police and firefighters raced to emergencies. The burning hulks of cars littered streets.
“It was full of vehicles on fire, just about everywhere you would look,” said [American retiree] Jim Vawter, who took pictures and video.
Then Vawter saw motorcycles — two men per bike, the one in the rear toting semiautomatic weapons — stopping one vehicle after another and forcing people out. Buses and cars had to brake under threat of being shot.
“They would immediately set them on fire and take off,” said Vawter, who had worked for a Midwest electric utility before settling in Puerto Vallarta. “It was swarmed with motorcycle riders. All the vehicles that were moving were stopped.”
On Sunday, the U.S. embassy in Mexico urged American citizens in “Jalisco State (including Puerto Vallarta, Chapala, and Guadalajara), Tamaulipas State (including Reynosa and other municipalities), areas of Michoacan State, Guerrero State, and Nuevo Leon State” to shelter in place until further notice. As of this writing, that shelter-in-place instruction is still in effect.
Across Mexico, a dozen states have canceled school. More than 240 flights to and from Mexican airports have been canceled. Late Sunday, President Sheinbaum announced that authorities had cleared “most” of 250 cartel roadblocks across 20 states.
Guadalajara is scheduled to host four matches in June as part of the 2026 World Cup, including a match between Mexico and South Korea on June 18. The Spanish sports website Marca reported that FIFA grew deeply concerned yesterday. “Sources familiar with planning have acknowledged a high level of concern over whether conditions on the ground can ensure the safety expected at a global sporting event of this scale. Local organizers have been asked to demonstrate that they can secure both the World Cup matches and key qualifying playoffs set for late March.”
The Mexican government, assisted by our government, has won a great victory against the New Generation Cartel of Jalisco. But it has come at a significant cost, costs borne mostly by the people of Mexico, hiding in their homes and wondering when the streets will be safe again.
ADDENDUM: The Washington Post checks in on former President Joe Biden and his ongoing treatment for prostate cancer: “Longtime friends and allies of Joe Biden say they are worried about the toll an aggressive form of prostate cancer is taking on the former president and his health. But Biden and his aides say he is doing well, making progress on ongoing projects and maintaining public appearances.”
Had President Biden remained in the race, Donald Trump would have won the 2024 presidential election, likely by an even wider margin, with significant down-ticket effects. But if Biden had remained in the race and his inner circle had somehow managed to hide the effects of his advanced age from the public and gotten him reelected, we almost certainly would be living under Acting President Kamala Harris by now.
Biden’s last PSA test, which detects prostate cancer, was in 2014. At no point during his presidency did Biden’s physician, Kevin O’Connor, feel there was any need to run Biden’s blood sample through a PSA test.