Mexico made 'high-risk bet' in taking down cartel boss El Mencho

The details offered by the Mexican government about Sunday's operation to capture Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho," the head of one of the country's most powerful criminal groups, could easily find a home in a Hollywood script.

After tracking El Mencho's lover to his lair, Mexican special forces launched an operation by air and land, leading to two shootouts that left the drug boss mortally wounded. El Mencho eventually died aboard a military helicopter as it flew to get him medical aid.

Gen. Ricardo Trevilla Trejo, the secretary of national defence, described these details for the world to hear during President Claudia Sheinbaum's weekday morning news conference on Monday.

Yet one of the key aspects of this narrative remained obscured — why the Mexican government decided this was the right time to decapitate the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), one of the most powerful organized crime groups in the country.

The move carries potentially significant risk as the country prepares to co-host the World Cup of soccer in a little over four months.

The decision to strike involved multiple factors, say experts in Mexico, including a window of opportunity combined with the ongoing pressure the Sheinbaum administration has faced from the U.S., which supplied intelligence used in the operation.

El Mencho was the last of the major drug bosses who remained on the loose. His criminal organization is also a major exporter of fentanyl to the U.S., said José Reveles, a veteran Mexican journalist and author who has investigated organized crime and corruption.

El Mencho was also ailing, requiring regular dialysis treatment, which he received from a personal mobile clinic, said Reveles.

"It is possible that the turning point was specifically that intelligence came from the United States," he said.

"[President] Donald Trump claimed that [the Mexican] government was doing nothing against the 'terrorists,' which is how he refers to drug trafficking.… This reduces some of that pressure."

The CJNG is not only a major international player in the drug trade, but is also involved in running extortion rackets throughout the agriculture sector, which includes targets like avocado and lime growers.

The CJNG has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and Canada.

Reveles said the government may have struck to weaken the CJNG with the World Cup on the horizon.

"This helps to keep the country peaceful," said Reveles, who called called it Sheinbaum's "most resonant triumph" since she took power in October 2024.