On Sunday, 22 February (four-year anniversary of the beginning of Ukraine war), Mexican army special forces, with U.S. intelligence support, conducted an operation in Tapalpa, Jalisco, southwest of Guadalajara. They attacked the leadership of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and killed its leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, a.k.a. "El Mencho" or, "El Señor." El Mencho was wounded in the firefight and died during air transfer to Mexico City.
Several other cartel members were killed, two were arrested, and a number of armored vehicles and rocket launchers were seized. The operation was one of the first, and certainly the most spectacular actions of the new, coordinated strategy against the drug cartels that have been waging the 21st century Opium War against the United States.
The war on cartels started on President Trump’s first day in office, on January 20, 2025, when he signed Executive Order 14157, directing the State Department to formally designate cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio then made the formal determination on 6 February, and the designations took effect on 20 February 2025 when published in the Federal Register. That was basically a declaration of war on Mexican drug cartels.
Six of them were designated as terror organizations: the Sinaloa Cartel, Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, Cártel del Noreste (formerly Los Zetas), Gulf Cartel, La Nueva Familia Michoacana, and Cárteles Unidos. Also designated were Tren de Aragua (Venezuela) and MS-13 (El Salvador). All these cartels have operations in states like California, Texas, Illinois, New York, Florida, Georgia, Washington, and Oregon with networks covering large U.S. cities including Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Laredo, Atlanta, and Seattle.
In addition to the U.S. and Mexico, many of these cartels are known to operate in Canada, especially in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.
As we recently discussed in this newsletter, the drug cartels rose to power in the aftermath of the 1995 Mexican banking crisis which followed President Carlos Salinas de Gortari’s privatizations of the banking sector in 1991 and 1992. Who would ever have thought that within four years of bank privatizations, the Mexican state would have to disburse $150 billion in Mexican taxpayer money to bail out the bankers? Evidently, many mistakes were made, but thankfully some lessons were also learned!
The collapse of Mexican banks created an opportunity for Western banking cartels to help, which they did: Global Systemically Important Banks (GSIBs) like BBVA, Santander, Citi and HSBC moved in and bought out about 85% of Mexico’s banking sector, modernizing their services to include efficient money laundering services for the struggling cartels. As a result, their business took off with booming exports to the United States.
In 2008, General Barry McCaffrey visited Mexico on a fact-finding mission. He submitted a report which revealed, among other things, that Mexican drug cartels were earning over $460 million per week on their drugs trade (more than $25 billion/year). By 2017, according to the US Treasury Department, the total drugs trade in the U.S. was estimated at $64 billion/year - almost $1.2 billion per week!
With all that money, thoroughly laundered by their banks, the cartels could invest in proper military gear to secure their operations from state interference. According to McCaffrey, the cartels have been able to stand up,
“platoon-sized units employing night vision goggles, electronic intercept collection, encrypted communications, sophisticated information operations, sea-going submersibles, helicopters and modern transport aviation, automatic weapons, RPGs, Anti-Tank 66 mm rockets, mines and booby traps, heavy machine guns, 50 cal sniper rifles, massive use of military hand grenades, and the most modern models of 40mm grenade machine guns.”
In the more recent years, the cartels procured large amounts of U.S. made weapons from Ukraine. Mexican government has demanded an urgent investigation into how and why drug cartels in the country have acquired U.S. military-grade weapons.
This is the force that the Mexican state is now up against. After Sunday’s action by Mexican special forces and the death of El Mencho, CJNG immediately retaliated, killing at least 25 Mexican national guardsmen. Mexico Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch said the soldiers were killed in “27 cowardly attacks against authorities in Jalisco.” Harfuch added that 30 cartel members were also killed in the violence.
It’s clear that the well armed and well organized cartels won’t give up on their $60+ billion/year revenue stream. In addition to troops and weapons, that money almost certainly bought them many supporters in Mexico’s political class, media, academia and hundreds of non-government and charitable organizations who will find ways to frustrate government efforts and help the cartels, probably behind the banners of human rights, brutality of government’s crackdown, etc.
But once the war has been declared, the government can’t retreat either and it’s unlikely that Mexico will easily go back to business-as-usual. We should expect the conflict to continue and sporadically escalate. Its consequences could include a weakening of Mexico’s economy, including the production and exports of oil. In fact, the cartels might move deliberately to attack oil producing and processing facilities to weaken government forces. But their cohesion will depend on the way succession struggles play out.
The
2026 FIFA World Cup is scheduled to be held in the United States,
Canada, and Mexico, from 11 June to 19 July of this year. It'll be the
first World Cup ever hosted across three countries, and and all three
could be engulfed by the escalating war on drug cartels and therefore
vulnerable to terror attacks. The Jalisco cartel, which was just
attacked by Mexico’s special forces, has extensive operations in all the
cities where the World Cup matches will be played: 11 Cities in the US,
3 Cities in Mexico and
2 Cities in Canada.
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By Independent News Roundup