“Focusing on quick boat operators is not going to cease main drug trafficking kingpins from sending multi-ton portions of medicine to our nation and all over the world,” Michael Chavarria, a former DEA supervisor who spent 26 years investigating drug cartels in Mexico, the Caribbean and the Southwest border, instructed The Cipher Temporary. “The drug commerce is essentially the most worthwhile enterprise on the planet, the ultimate. The minions at present focused on the excessive seas will proceed risking their lives as a result of kingpins pay them greater than they might ever earn pursuing authorized choices. Now, on the excessive seas, they’re being extrajudicially murdered, in a marketing campaign that can haven’t any impression on the worldwide drug commerce.”
Like different veterans of the DEA, Chavarria suspects that if the boats blown up up to now contained contraband, it was possible marijuana or cocaine, a stimulant manufactured in Colombia from coca vegetation grown in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. Lots of the small boats plying the Caribbean are believed to be supplying the European market, the place cocaine brings double or triple U.S. costs. Whereas hardly benign, cocaine shouldn’t be thought of a serious overdose hazard, and it has fallen out of trend amongst many American drug customers, who’ve more and more turned to far riskier substances — notably fentanyl, an artificial opioid painkiller a lot stronger than heroin, and the artificial stimulant methamphetamine. Each are manufactured principally in Mexico, in cartel “superlabs,” with precursor chemical substances imported from China and India.
“I doubt these selections [to attack small boats] contain enter from DEA management, who I consider serve the American public as greatest as assets permit,” Chavarria mentioned. “As a substitute, let’s concentrate on the Chinese language fentanyl sources liable for threatening our residents’ lives. The brand new lethal triangle is China-Mexico-United States.”
Regardless of objections from Congress, authorized students and overseas governments, President Trump has introduced he could quickly authorize strikes inside Venezuela. Many consultants consider his agenda in that nation is about forcing President Nicolas Maduro out of workplace, fairly than stopping medication, as a result of Venezuela shouldn’t be recognized for producing huge portions of unlawful medication. The U.S. authorities’s most authoritative annual intelligence assessments – the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Nationwide Drug Menace Evaluation and the State Division’s Worldwide Narcotics Management Technique Report – characterize Venezuela as a transshipment hub. Maduro himself and a quantity present and former Venezuelan officers have been indicted in 2020 for conspiring with Colombia’s leftist FARC insurgents to move cocaine produced within the guerillas’ jungle labs in Colombia.
The issue is in Mexico
The world’s richest, strongest drug lords are Mexican residents, with well-armed non-public armies, dynasties and bases of operations nestled deep within the Mexican countryside. Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum has completely dominated out the concept of American boots on Mexican soil. Will the U.S. defy her needs by ordering American armed drones or particular operations groups into Mexico to conduct unilateral commando raids? To date, Trump and his senior advisors haven’t signaled that such incursions are imminent – however they’ve by no means mentioned by no means. In Ecuador two months in the past, Rubio mentioned the administration would proceed to focus on and kill suspected traffickers with out their homelands’ consent, if these nations didn’t take part in Trump’s new battle on medication by mounting their very own assaults on cartels. “For cooperative governments, there’s no want as a result of these governments are going to assist us,” he mentioned. “They’re going to assist us discover these individuals and blow them up, if that’s what it takes.”
Mexican safety forces have repeatedly tried and didn’t arrest El Mencho, actual title Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, Mexico’s kingpin of kingpins. Oseguera is the 59-year-old founder and chief of the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), Mexico’s, and the world’s most profitable and feared organized crime enterprise. The CJNG, which emerged from the western state of Michoacán, famed for its avocados, is now a multinational billion-dollar enterprise with a presence in practically each state in the usand at the very least 40 nations, in accordance with DEA’s Nationwide Drug Menace Evaluation. The U.S. has put a $15 million bounty on Oseguera’s head.
“The CJNG might be the wealthiest felony group on the planet, possibly much more than the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] in Iran,” Paul Craine, previously DEA’s regional director for Mexico, Central America, and Canada, instructed The Cipher Temporary. “It’s the largest terrorist group within the Western hemisphere. The CJNG is now proper on the border, which nobody ever anticipated. Plus, they’ve the U.S. infiltrated with their parts for smuggling weapons, medication and different companies.”
Reward poster for data resulting in the arrest and/or conviction of “El Mencho”. (State Division)
In second place is the older, fragmented however nonetheless highly effective Sinaloa cartel. Sinaloa cartel leaders Ivan Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar and Jesus Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, referred to as the Chapitos, are sons of the notorious cartel founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, now serving time in a U.S. jail. They’re credited with creating the fentanyl craze by selling it of their distribution programs, alongside cocaine, meth and marijuana. The U.S. is providing rewards of $10 million apiece for them.
In an interview with The Cipher Temporary, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Tex., who lately led the Congressional job drive on cartels to Mexico to discuss with Sheinbaum’s senior safety officers, mentioned he wouldn’t advise Trump to strive a unilateral incursion on Mexican soil with out that nation’s full settlement and lively participation. Such an act would explicitly violate the 2 nations’ joint settlement signed final month pledging “respect of sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Each nations promised to struggle drug trafficking and different crimes “every in our personal territory,” Mexican overseas secretary overseas secretary Juan Ramon de la Fuente emphasised.
To dismantle the cartels and destroy their sanctuaries in Mexico, Crenshaw, a former lieutenant commander within the Navy SEALs, and different members of Congress are pushing for an enormous joint U.S.-Mexico initiative modeled on the U.S.-Colombian military-intelligence relationship within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s. In these operations, Colombian commandos have been the purpose of the spear, with advisors and trainers from U.S. particular operations, the Central Intelligence Company, Nationwide Safety Company and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration working behind the scenes, offering coaching, communications intercepts, human intelligence, monitoring know-how, monetary analyses and different technical help. In consequence, in 1993, the joint effort tracked alerts from a radio cellphone wielded by legendary Medellin cartel founder Pablo Escobar to the roof of a dingy constructing in downtown Medellin. A Colombian navy marksman shot him useless. The remainder of the Medellin cartel crumbled. By 1995, the Cali cartel had fallen. FARC guerillas quickly stepped into the breach by establishing jungle labs and taking up the cocaine manufacturing enterprise. The CIA covertly provided U.S.-made precision-guided munitions that the Colombians utilized in a collection of air strikes that decimated the FARC management. In 2016, surviving FARC guerillas made a peace accord with Bogotá and agreed to demobilize.
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What the struggle would appear like
Any commando staff that tries to tackle Mexico’s drug bosses and their massive, well-armed paramilitary forces can anticipate ferocious resistance financed by very deep pockets. CJNG territory covers hundreds of sq. miles within the western Mexican state of Michoacán, the place Oseguera was born, and in neighboring Jalisco state. His area is rugged countryside, dotted with ranches and laced with hidden trails, caves and mines. Oseguera has even constructed his personal hospital, in accordance with DEA intelligence, so he can bear therapy for persistent kidney illness.
The Chapitos are equally well-protected in Sinaloa state. Consultants warn {that a} joint Mexican-U.S. particular operations assault would increase the specter of potential “blue-on-blue”or “green-on-green” firefights a with corrupt parts of Mexico’s safety forces defending the narco leaders. “They journey in hordes of safety,” says a senior DEA agent who has investigated them for a few years. “And never simply hordes of safety, however you are speaking a couple of paid-off navy that is defending them, paid-off police defending them. The corruption is simply so rampant, and because of this a number of these individuals cannot get caught.”
“Whether or not you name it counterterrorism or counterinsurgency, that’s what we’re coping with in Mexico,” Crenshaw instructed the Cipher Temporary. “They use terroristic techniques. They terrorize their very own individuals. They’re an insurgency, within the sense that they are built-in into each degree of society, from authorities to their very own navy, to safety, to popular culture… The Mexican navy has some very, very elite items that I feel can be revered anyplace on the planet. However there’s not a lot of them. They want extra, and extra coaching, extra pipelines into these elite items. Primary plane, ISR [intelligence surveillance reconnaissance], shut air assist, issues which are largely missing. After they do go into these very harmful areas and attempt to go after a few of these harmful kingpins, they’re doing so with out the sort of assist that U.S. particular operations can be used to.”
Violence on the Mexico-United States border continues to rise. Simply 10 days into the month, practically 21 homicides are recorded. On Monday, March 10, seven individuals are shot and killed in separate incidents. (Picture by David Peinado/NurPhoto through Getty Pictures)
The CJNG’s defenses are thought of notably militarized and formidable. In keeping with present and former U.S. officers who’ve investigated the cartel, Mencho roams about his area through four-wheel-drive convoys or small plane, all the time surrounded by massive numbers of heavily-armed paramilitary fighters who put on insignia figuring out them as FEM, Fuerzas Especiales Mencho or Grupo X, which focuses on preventing rival cartels. Like Osama Bin Laden, he avoids utilizing telephones and as an alternative makes use of messengers.
For a commando staff, armed drone or precision-guided munition to search out Mencho and his celebration, exact GPS coordinates can be wanted, and so they’ll be onerous to return by.
“He strikes fairly typically,” a U.S. knowledgeable who has lately assessed the kingpin’s vulnerabilities instructed The Cipher Temporary. “So the intelligence on his location must be extraordinarily good. Which it’s not.”
Whether or not surveillance drones may get hold of dependable coordinates on Mencho’s place in actual time is questionable. “The place Mencho is hiding they will hear drones coming,” the U.S. knowledgeable mentioned. “It’s so quiet on the market there’s no noise air pollution. They’ve been efficiently avoiding SEMAR’s drones for years.” SEMAR is U.S. navy shorthand for a Mexican navy/marines particular operations unit that has educated with the U.S. Navy SEALs and labored carefully with the U.S.
The cartel has its personal drone unit, referred to as the Operadores Droneros, full with badges. Cartel operatives additionally arrange safety cameras, like looking cameras, to detect the presence of outsiders.
“They’ve a number of early warning functionality,” mentioned Chavarria, who used to run the DEA’s workplace in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco, then ran investigations of the Gulf cartel out of Houston. “I do not assume that we’ve got the kind of exact intelligence that might permit us to impact an operation. And even when it is accessible, it is time-sensitive, it is perishable. Should you’re not there on prime of your goal, you are going to miss. After which there’s going to be gunfights and a number of harmless individuals are going to get killed. Mencho hangs out in cities, he bounces round as a result of he is untouchable. He is obtained police escorts, he is obtained state cops and municipal cops defending him. His males have ringed perimeters of safety, the place they’re speaking with each other on numerous frequencies which are digitally encrypted. So it is very tough for the U.S. to crack these encryptions, and clearly for the Mexican safety forces as effectively.”
In keeping with Chavarria and different present and former officers, the CJNG has intensive counter-surveillance capabilities. Cartel safety officers, referred to as sicarios, actually, assassins, concern cellphones with closely encrypted voice-over-internet and radio-over-internet apps to a whole lot of human lookouts, referred to as halcones, that means hawks, spies, who’re beneath orders to report any strangers exhibiting up in cartel territory.
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Mexican safety forces have been pushed again each time they’ve tried to get near Mencho. Notoriously, on Might 1, 2015, a Mexican navy helicopter that flew over his convoy in Jalisco state was shot down by the cartel paramilitary drive with an Iranian-made rocket-propelled grenade and .50 caliber belt-fed machine gun. 9 Mexican troopers and federal police died, and others have been severely wounded. Rubén Oseguera González, AKA Menchito, Mencho’s California-born son and second-in-command, then 25, was accused of ordering the assault on the helicopter. The Mexican navy and police mounted an enormous operation to trace him to a rich suburb of Guadalajara. Menchito was extradited to Los Angeles, prosecuted for violating U.S. drug legal guidelines, convicted final September and on March 7, sentenced to life plus 30 years in a U.S. jail.
The U.S. victory was short-lived. Mencho’s stepson Juan Carlos Valencia González, a California-born U.S. citizen who’s the son of Oseguera’s spouse, Rosalinda González Valencia and has emerged as Mencho’s heir-apparent. A pacesetter within the cartel’s elite commando drive, he’s referred to as R-3. The U.S. is providing a $5 million reward for him. ( His mom Rosalinda, AKA La Jefa, comes from a strong cartel dynasty, the Valencias. Her uncle is Armando Valencia, AKA El Maradona, founding father of the Milenio Cartel, the predecessor of the CJNG. A serious participant in her personal proper, Rosalinda frolicked in a Mexican jail for cash laundering however was launched final February, in accordance with information studies in Mexico.)
Sheinbaum has satisfied many in Washington that she is honest in her willpower to interrupt the ability of the cartels, particularly the CJNG, which has menaced her administration unceasingly.
In 2020, Sheinbaum’s trusted advisor Omar García Harfuch, then Mexico Metropolis’s chief of police, narrowly survived a CJNG assasination try. Sheinbaum was Mexico Metropolis’s mayor on the time. When Sheinbaum turned president in October 2024, she named Harfuch nationwide safety minister and accelerated navy raids on CJNG labs and different websites.
However up to now, the cartel has proved stronger. Final March, Mexican troopers and nationwide guardsmen driving in a convoy close to CJNG territory on the border between Jalisco and Michoacán states have been ambushed, and 6 safety drive officers and three CJNG hitmen have been killed. Three days later, safety forces within the space have been once more ambushed, two of their quantity killed and the remainder compelled to retreat.
On Might 1, precisely 10 years to the day after the helicopter downing, Oseguera staged a flamboyant retribution for the incarceration of his son Menchito. Iván Morales Corrales, a Mexican policeman who survived the crash, badly burned, was embellished as a nationwide hero and testified towards Menchito within the U.S. trial in Los Angeles, was gunned down together with his spouse whereas driving on a quiet avenue in a city removed from the CJNG’s turf. This was an unmistakable assertion that the cartel may attain anybody, anyplace, anytime.
David Cristobal Barraza Sainz, referred to as Commander “Nitro” throughout the Sinaloa State Police, was shot and killed after an assault that passed off on Pedro Infante Boulevard at round 1:00 p.m in Sinaloa, Mexico on July 15, 2025. (Picture by Stringer/Anadolu through Getty Pictures)
Derek Maltz, who served as DEA administrator till June and earlier than that ran the company’s elite Particular Operations Division for a decade, believes that if the Mexican military fails to mount extra operations towards the CJNG and different cartel strongholds, the Trump staff will critically think about unilateral operations, regardless of Sheinbaum’s vocal objections. “If the U.S. authorities would not understand that Mexico has the need or capabilities to actually take them off the taking part in area, I would not be shocked that the administration is taking a look at focused strikes on the [cartel] management,” Maltz instructed The Cipher Temporary. “ I’d personally encourage it. The president has made it clear that he will place American households first, making an attempt to maintain everybody protected and safe. So if it means taking out some kingpins within the narco-terrorist world, I’d absolutely assist that.”
As a sensible matter, a raid or two wouldn’t remedy the issue. Mexico’s cartels, like main companies, may survive the loss of some key executives. “Killing Mencho can be vital, but it surely’s not going to take out the group,” Craine mentioned. “You are going to should have sustained operations towards the entire community.”
A worldwide syndicate of evil
The CJNG has constructed out a sophisticated and sturdy govt construction lately because it has gone world and diversified.
“Mencho is increasing all over the world,” Maltz instructed The Cipher Temporary. He and his allies “have acknowledged the risk to their enterprise enterprise with the elevated consideration by the Trump administration. In order that they’re adjusting methods, realigning, figuring out new partnerships, being strategic in a few of their world routes and capitalizing in the marketplace in numerous areas of the world.” Maltz and different DEA veterans say Mencho has cemented worldwide alliances with organized crime syndicates, from motorbike gangs in the usto the Japanese Yakuza. When the income to be produced from human trafficking dwindled because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on the border, the CJNG developed different sturdy money streams, together with stealing gas from the Mexican oil firm PEMEX and different vitality shops, extorting avocado farmers, and even smuggling mercury, a dear, toxic by-product of gold-mining, in accordance with the DEA and information studies.
“The CJNG is the primary worldwide felony conglomerate,” Craine mentioned. “It’s the primary ICC to function worldwide and to have felony management of authorized commodities and companies as effectively, equivalent to oil, gasoline, minerals, chemical substances, timber, authorities funding, infrastructure and assets, armed forces, weapons, politics, police companies, judicial programs, worldwide monetary companies, and so forth.”
What’s most alarming is the numerous CJNG and Sinaloa cartel presence within the U.S.
“What we face at the moment in Southern California is a full-scale infiltration by overseas felony empires, the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco New Era cartel – paramilitary organizations with world provide chains, company degree logistics, and battlefield techniques,” Matthew Allen, DEA’s chief of operations, instructed the Senate Judiciary committee final June.
Allen testified that a couple of weeks earlier, a DEA staff had raided an outdated warehouse in downtown Los Angeles, a couple of blocks from the company’s massive Southern California workplace. Hidden inside, the brokers found, was an expensive CJNG protected home with locations for cartel operatives to lounge, a pool desk, polished flooring and, presiding over all of it, a floor-to-ceiling mural of El Mencho, depicted in a bulletproof vest emblazoned with the CJNG insignia and Mencho’s private image, a bloody cockfight.
It was, Allen mentioned, “a shrine, not hidden within the jungle or some distant compound however proper within the coronary heart of the center of America’s second-largest metropolis. The message was clear: ‘We’re right here. We’re amongst you’.”
Picture of Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación protected home in Los Angeles.(DEA Official)
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