El Mencho +24hrs: Latest from Mexico

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio speaks to Kate McCann for Times Radio, + Extras.

Transcript

Kate McCann 0:00

After the death of one of the world's most wanted drug traffickers, foreign tourists there have been told to take shelter. The Mexican cartel boss known as El Mencho was killed by his country's security forces. Visitors have been told uh to to be aware of their surroundings in the region. Latin America correspondent Jon Bonfiglio joins us live from just north of Mexico City. He's close to where that violence is breaking out. Good morning.

Jon Bonfiglio 0:25

Morning, Kate.

Kate McCann 0:26

What's the latest we know at the moment?

Jon Bonfiglio 0:28

Um so the latest is that violence has broken out across eight states. We're seeing roadblocks, burn out vehicles, fires started across the area. As you say, shelter in place, orders by uh local authorities and a number of um international governments as well, flights cancelled into and out of Guadalajara, although I understand it's operational now, and uh the tourist resort of Puerto Vallarta and wide-ranging um uh decrees to close schools, curtail public transport uh and the like across the region.

Kate McCann 0:59

And this is this all off the back of the of the killing or the death of El Mencho?

Jon Bonfiglio 1:04

Yeah, this is all at this point, it is all in direct retaliation uh by the cartel, by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, for the killing of their of their leader, their founder and leader, uh El Mencho, their real name, Nemesio Rubén Oseguerra Cervantes, El Mencho, of course, was his uh was his nickname. That violence we expect to evolve over the next few days and weeks into um uh violence which uh relates to different splinter groups from the cartel beginning to vie for um uh authority uh and control over the leadership.

Kate McCann 1:39

And how significant a moment is is his death? I mean, he he was obviously you know a cartel boss. What will that mean for that particular cartel? Will will essentially someone else just take over?

Jon Bonfiglio 1:51

So there is there is a question for the cartel specifically, which which is you know, if we look at the the long um history of what's often referred to as the decapitation strategy or the kingpin strategy, where um authorities go in and they try to take out the head of a particular uh group, what tends to happen is that uh there's then uh an extended period of extreme violence as different groups five for the leadership and nothing really really changes. I think where this one is a little bit different is because um uh Nemesio Oseguerra Cervantes is not just Mexico's most wanted among the US's most wanted criminals, but is arguably uh the most powerful, if not one of the most powerful drug lords uh on the planet. So his um his demise is going to lead to a restructure not just within Mexico, but as regards international criminal networks, and who knows what that's going to look like.

Kate McCann 2:47

I mean that that is a significant moment. Can you just explain the operation to take him down? Because it wasn't straightforward, was it?

Jon Bonfiglio 2:53

It wasn't straightforward at all, and it wasn't clear to start off with what actually was um was taking taking place. And I think this is also a relevant point because initially, uh, when it was announced that he was killed, it seemed as though it was a sort of straightforward um uh assassination attempt to take him out. But it then became clear that actually he it was an attempt to arrest him and take him to Mexico City, which went wrong, that met with resistance, and then there was a number of casualties that um uh that emerged as a result of the firefight. Now, why that's important is because had El Mencho been captured live, it is highly unlikely that he would have been tried in a Mexican court and sentenced to jail in a Mexican prison. So it's almost certain that he would have been extradited to the United States, and clearly the United States knew about this uh ahead of time.

Kate McCann 3:43

I mean, there is a there's a wider concern here, isn't there, that Guadalajara is the venue for the World Cup later this year. Um I mean, will that be a concern?

Jon Bonfiglio 3:53

It clearly is a concern, and it's not just the World Cup in three months, it's also the uh the intercontinental playoffs are taking place at the end of next month. So just in a few weeks' time, and a lot of this uh this violence and the debris that surrounded this violence took place just a few hundred metres from the from the stadium itself. And Guadalajara and the western state of Jalisco is the is the home base uh for this uh for this uh international, transnational uh criminal organization. It is where they have, I mean, they're pretty powerful everywhere, but that is where they have most power and control.

Kate McCann 4:24

Well, Jon, I've no doubt that we're going to be speaking to you again this week to find out the latest on what's happening there. Thanks very much for giving us that update.

Jon Bonfiglio 4:31

No problem, take care.

Kate McCann 4:32

That is Latin America correspondent Jon Bonfiglio.

Jon Bonfiglio 4:35

Hi everyone. Well, that was this morning's breakfast show in the United Kingdom with Kate McCann on Times Radio. I just wanted to add just um just a couple of minutes on El Mencho himself because in the in the sort of storytelling or in the news, I think it's worth just breaking down who he was. Um so yeah, Nemesio Rubén Oceguera Cervantes, as we've said before, it's a long-winded name. Uh much easier to sign him as El Mencho. He was born into rural poverty in Mexico's western state of Michoacán, 1966. 69 years old uh he he was when he was killed. Um interesting because we I think we regard him as being much younger, but that's because the only photographs we have of him are decades old. He was such a reclusive figure. As a boy, he harvested avocados before moving into the protection of marijuana plantations, and then in his late teens, he emerges. We find him in San Francisco in Sacramento, Sacramento, in the in California, at the end of various drug charges, which sees him serve three years in a Texas prison before being deported back to Mexico, where he joins El Milenio Cartel, a small subgroup of the Sinaloa Cartel. The group then fractures, and after a bloody internal conflict, he emerges as its leader, breaking with the Sinaloa Cartel and establishing independently as a Jalisco New Generation cartel. It is remarkably only 16 years old, and in less than that time it leveraged itself into being one of the most powerful criminal groups in Mexico, and as we've said a couple of times now, arguably the world. And there's lots of little curious details about what we think we know about El Mencho. One of the more peculiar ones is that it is believed that he had a chronic kidney condition, and that's maybe interesting. Uh, but actually how we think we know it is especially uh noteworthy. And it's because state-of-the-art micro hospitals with world-class renal facilities kept cropping up in tiny remote villages in western Mexico over the last 10 years, which made no sense to anybody and wasn't really overtly discussed, but which continually had been linked to um the belief that uh that Oseguera Cervantes was suffering from a long running kidney condition that he needed regular uh treatment for. And of course, you know, if you are a drug lord, you can afford to pay for these things. So you're gonna build these things, you're gonna build the very best that you can afford.