Attorney General Pam Bondi says that Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) isn’t just a drug cartel; it’s a “brutal terrorist organization that pumps poison onto our streets and commits horrific acts of violence.” Other U.S. officials have described it as “one of the world’s most violent and prolific drug trafficking organizations.”
Last week, one of its co-founders and key leaders was officially removed from the streets for good. 34-year-old Ruben Oseguera-Gonzalez, who is also known as El Menchito or “the little guy,” was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C. The judge also ordered a forfeiture of over $6 billion.
Oseguera-Gonzalez, who has both Mexican and United States citizenship, is a pretty nasty dude. Court documents suggest that he brutally killed at least five people who owed him money and once shot a subordinate in his own cartel, as well as a rival cartel member.
According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), he also:
…carried firearms, including a rifle and grenade launcher that bore his moniker, which he used to threaten Mexican law enforcement upon his arrest. Oseguera-Gonzalez also directed the 2015 attack on a Mexican military helicopter that was pursuing Oseguera-Gonzalez and his father, the top leader of the CJNG. The helicopter was shot down, allowing Oseguera-Gonzalez and his father to evade capture while killing at least nine Mexican service members and permanently disfiguring at least one other. Additionally, according to statements made in court and trial testimony, Oseguera-Gonzalez ordered the murder of more than 100 people, some of which he murdered himself.
CJNG is also one of the eight Latin American drug trafficking organizations designated as terrorist organizations by Donald Trump. It’s well-known for smuggling fentanyl into the U.S. in the form of pills that look like common prescriptions, like Xanax, Percocet, or oxycodone, according to CBS.
According to the State Department, “It has been assessed to have the highest cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine trafficking capacity in Mexico.”
“Menchito was not only extremely violent, he was also one of the earliest architects of fentanyl trafficking that led to the deadliest chapter of the synthetic opioid crisis, and responsible for flooding the country with methamphetamine. This country is undoubtedly safer now that he will spend the rest of his life in federal prison. Let this be a warning to members of CJNG, its associates, and the other cartels that DEA’s work is far from over,” Acting Administrator Derek S. Maltz of the Drug Enforcement Administration said in a statement upon learning of the sentencing.
While the good news is that Menchito can no longer terrorize the people of the United States and Mexico, his father, the man who started CJNG, remains a fugitive. Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, who is also known as El Mencho, is wanted by both the U.S. and Mexican governments, each offering hefty rewards — US$15 million and MX$300 million — for information leading to his arrest.
It sounds like they have their work cut out for them. Years ago, one Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent said that “In Mexico, you’d run into guys who had met Chapo but not Mencho. He’s kind of a ghost.”
The 58-year-old and his CJNG have also been compared to ISIS by DEA agents, often torturing people for seemingly sadistic reasons, whereas other infamous cartel leaders, like El Chapo, did it as a “part of business.” A 2017 article from Rolling Stone states:
Mencho has also displayed a savagery that’s extreme even by narco standards. For the admittedly brutal Chapo, killing was a necessary part of business. For Mencho, it seems more like sadism as public spectacle. There have been mass killings, such as the 35 bound and tortured bodies dumped in the streets of Veracruz during evening rush hour in 2011. Two years later, CJNG operatives raped, killed and set fire to a 10-year-old girl whom they (mistakenly) believed was a rival’s daughter. In 2015, CJNG assassins executed a man and his elementary-school-age son by detonating sticks of dynamite duct-taped to their bodies, laughing as they filmed the ghastly scene with their phones.
When you learn a little bit about Mencho’s past, all of this may come as no surprise. Born to an avocado farmer, he dropped out of school in the fifth grade, and by the age of 14, he was working as a guard for marijuana crops. By the age of 19, he was living in California illegally and was arrested for “possession of stolen property and a loaded gun,” according to Rolling Stone. Over the next few years, he was arrested several more times in California for drug-related charges.
At some point, he became an officer with the Jalisco state police and got involved with the Milenio Cartel, rising among its ranks. In 2009, he started CJNG. His son, Ruben, who helped him, was just a teenager at the time.
Since 2017, the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., had indicted him many times with charges like “conspiracy and distribution of a controlled substance (methamphetamine, cocaine, and fentanyl) for purposes of unlawful importation into the United States and use of a firearm during and in relation to drug trafficking crimes.” The State Department says he “is also charged under the Drug Kingpin Statute for operating a continuing criminal enterprise.”
