The Cult of Mencho - Preview Chapter from World of Crime's New CJNG Book

"CJNG: A Quick Guide to Mexico's Deadliest Cartel" is out for pre-order! In this chapter, we explore how CJNG supremo Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias "Mencho," gained his reputation.

World of Crime’s first book, “CJNG: A Quick Guide to Mexico’s Deadliest Cartel” is up for pre-order on Kindle here. We’re selling it at 70% off at $4.99 until its release on May 15, 2024.

If you fancy ordering it, reading it and giving us a review, we’ll greatly appreciate it.
If you don’t, no problem, we hope you enjoy the chapter below.

To give you a hint of what to expect, read on.👇

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Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “Mencho,” is one of the world’s most-wanted men. Traffickers and sicarios across Mexico swear allegiance to his name as the leader of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (CJNG).

The problem is he hasn’t been seen for years. Many believe him to be dead. Intrigued yet?

THE CULT OF MENCHO

Some names to remember: Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “Mencho,” 57, talismanic leader of the CJNG, one of the men behind the rise in barbaric acts of violence in Mexico.

Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias “Chapo,” 66, founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, jailed for life in the United States.

Rosalinda González Valencia, 61, Mencho’s wife, member of the Valencia crime family, in prison and in ill-health.

Ignacio Coronel, alias “Nacho,” high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel and one of Mencho’s criminal mentors.

Abraham Oseguera Cervantes, Mencho’s brother, who accompanied him to the United States as a young man.

Very few cartel leaders are world-famous.

Pablo Escobar and El Chapo may have their faces plastered on posters, T-shirts and Netflix series. But the real danger in Mexico comes from an aging, moustachioed man who rarely pops his head out of his bolt-hole in the western state of Jalisco.

Mencho has no Netflix shows. Mencho has no clothing line. Almost the only photos of him are prison mugshots taken decades ago. 

Escobar and El Chapo cultivated reputations as men of the people, Robin Hood figures who gave generously back to their communities.

Not the case with Mencho. Instead, he has cultivated an aura of fear, devotion and anonymity.

Early Years

Mencho was born in 1966 as Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes in Naranjo de Chila, an avocado-growing village in the southern state of Michoacán. One of six brothers, he dropped out of school to find work at the age of eleven. At least two of his brothers, Antonio and Abraham, would accompany him into a life of crime.

In that part of Michoacán, there was a natural place to work. The influential Valencia family clan always needed pickers, packers and guards for their extensive avocado plantations around the town of Aguililla.

But young Nemesio soon became involved in the other side of the family business. Under the name of the Milenio Cartel, the Valencias enjoyed a booming marijuana and heroin business, which they sold to Mexico’s larger criminal groups.

Some Mexican media reports state that the Valencias spotted Mencho’s potential early and that by the age of 12, he was running a marijuana plantation. While this is a convenient origin story for one of Mexico’s most ruthless kingpins, plenty of drug traffickers have embellished their past, and there is no means to confirm exactly how Mencho got his start in the drug trade. He was, however, trusted enough to marry Rosalinda, the oldest daughter of the Valencia family, who quickly became a skilled money launderer like her brothers.

His life path became clearer in his twenties, when he ran afoul of American authorities. Like many ambitious, bright-eyed youngsters, Mencho appeared to have become fed up with the country life and moved to California. 

America the Beautiful

In 1986, aged 20, he had settled in the San Francisco Bay area. But where many found music, art, or sexual liberation in that gem of a city, Mencho found meth. Police records show Mencho was arrested in 1986 for possession of firearms and stolen property. Officers also suspected he was dealing meth.

This arrest did not put him off. Mencho understood America could give him the skills he needed.

From 1986 to 1994, under a variety of aliases, he zipped back and forth across the border. He was learning skills that laid the foundation for the criminal empire he would come to control: a mastery of how to manufacture, distribute and sell synthetic drugs. He would also lay down roots there. His wife, Rosalinda, would follow him, and their eldest daughter, Jessica Johanna, was born in San Francisco in 1986.

California was the right place to learn. In the late 1980s, the California Valley was the beating heart of the US meth industry. In San Diego, Sacramento and Fresno, huge meth labs would pump out the drug and distribute it to the rest of the United States. Front companies imported the chemicals needed to manufacture meth, mostly from China, and dispatched them to meth labs. This operating model resembles precisely the one Mencho would create with the CJNG in Mexico over thirty years later.

Mencho’s mugshot after being arrested in San Francisco in May 1986.

There is one example of how he was learning to sniff out trouble, a skill that would serve him later. Court documents tell of how Mencho and his brother, Abraham, found themselves at the Imperial bar in San Francisco on one evening in 1992. Their goal: to sell five ounces of heroin for $9,500 to two buyers.

According to one wiretapped conversation, Mencho became suspicious about the stacks of crisp-looking hundred-dollar bills the buyers were using. He tipped off Abraham that they were likely undercover policemen.

He was right. It was too late. Authorities had been onto the Cervantes boys for a while, and they were arrested. Mencho served four years in a federal prison in Texas before being turfed back to Mexico in 1997 at the age of 30.

Rise to the Top

Mencho then made an odd lifestyle choice: becoming a police officer. He served for a few years in the towns of Tomátlan and Cabo Corrientes, Jalisco. Very little is known about his time in the police force. But it is difficult to believe he suddenly had an urge to uphold the law.

Tomátlan is a small town south of the major tourist centre of Puerto Vallarta. In the 2010s, it would become a main base for the CJNG where the gang bought property to launder drug money. Perhaps Mencho first laid down roots there when he was a police officer.

His short time in the police force may have also helped him understand its inner workings, how poorly paid and trained Mexican police were, and how open they could be to bribery.

By the early 2000s, he was back in the arms of the Valencia family and their Milenio cartel in Michoacán. As a trusted hand, he was chosen to work as a gunman and bodyguard for the cartel’s leader, Armando Cornelio Valencia, alias “Maradona.” This lasted until the Valencias made some powerful enemies.

In 2003, the country’s most brutal criminal group, the Zetas, commanded by former special forces operatives, invaded Michoacán. Amid the bloodshed, the Valencia clan was driven out of Michoacán and Maradona was arrested in 2003.

Mencho survived the war with the Zetas and was part of a migration movement north, during which the Valencias sought shelter with El Chapo’s Sinaloa Cartel. There was a measure of trust there since the Valencias were trusted suppliers of marijuana and heroin.

Mencho was put to work under one of the most powerful and ruthless men in the Sinaloa Cartel, Ignacio Coronel, alias “Nacho.”

Coronel was the right person to develop Mencho’s career. He controlled drug trafficking in and around the city of Guadalajara, one of Mexico’s largest, and imported multi-ton shipments of cocaine to send to the United States.

Mencho was handpicked by Coronel to be part of a squad of gunmen who assassinated the Sinaloa Cartel’s enemies. Police and press reports from the mid and late 2000s list the Milenio Cartel as operating across much of central and southern Mexico in the name of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Ignacio Coronel Villarreal, alias “Nacho” and El Chapo’s father-in-law

This was the perfect stepping block. Mencho developed his leadership skills, gained some loyal followers, and furthered his knowledge of Mexico’s criminal landscape.

But, within a few years, Mencho’s life would be upended again. In 2009 and 2010, several Valencia family leaders would be arrested and Coronel was killed in his compound during a raid by the Mexican army. The Milenio Cartel had lost their protector and they could no longer keep their people united.

Around this time, Mencho gained a troubling reputation: of being a bit of a snitch. As laid out in this book’s first chapter, several arrests of his rivals worked out very conveniently for him. Several Milenio Cartel lieutenants believed Mencho may have informed or cooperated with authorities to have them arrested.

This led to a civil war. From 2010 to 2012, an offshoot of the Milenio Cartel refused to acknowledge Mencho and fought each other for control of criminal economies, especially in Jalisco and Michoacán. In a blur of speedily struck and rapidly abandoned criminal alliances, this conflict would also involve other Mexican criminal groups, especially the Zetas.

Eventually, Mencho stood tall. His band of loyal followers, first known as Los Torcidos (The Twisted Ones), formalized into the group known today as the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (CJNG). 

Becoming Mexico’s Most Wanted

After emerging victorious from the chaos that followed Colonel’s death, Mencho began his ascent to Mexico’s most-wanted criminal. Almost immediately, he began running the CJNG with open ambition.

While Mencho and the Valencias had come from Michoacán, the CJNG established its base in Jalisco, taking over some of the criminal economies left behind by Coronel.

The fledgling group was tolerated by El Chapo’s Sinaloa Cartel at first as they helped keep common enemies, like the Zetas, at bay.

Mencho embraced traditional forms of criminal income, such as growing and selling marijuana and the opium poppy used to make heroin, as well as trafficking cocaine from South America to the United States.

But increasingly, he steered the group towards the trade he had learned in America: meth.

This pivot provided lavish profits for Mencho and made the CJNG a desirable gang to work for. The resulting influx of numerous gang members in turn allowed Mencho to take his group almost nationwide.

The CJNG’s expansion plans followed a well-tested model. Banners would be put up in public areas, announcing the group’s arrival into a new city or state. Any who resisted would face a blitzkrieg invasion of CJNG gunmen. Those who were captured often had their bodies displayed as gory warnings.

And while Mencho shied away from the limelight personally, the CJNG developed a particular form of gallows humour. In October 2013, three decapitated bodies belonging to a rival outfit, the Knights Templar, were found on a road near Morelia, Michoacán, with a small sign that read: “We are here now…  Respectfully, CJNG.”

The Pushback

This rapid rise to power made the CJNG a primary target for retaliation by Mexico and the US alike. From 2014 to 2015, Mencho suffered a series of setbacks.

His son, Rubén Oseguera González, alias "El Menchito,” was arrested in 2014 and again in 2015. Prosecutors depicted Menchito, just 25 at the time, as being a crucial lieutenant to his father who coordinated cocaine deals from South America to Mexico, and gasoline theft in Jalisco, and commanded a squad of gunmen to fight against the Zetas and Knights Templar. He was eventually extradited to the US in 2020, where he remains behind bars.

The US Office of Foreign Assets Control was also going after the CJNG’s money. Mencho was added to the US list of sanctioned individuals in 2015, top CJNG personnel were killed and arrested, and many CJNG-owned properties and businesses were seized.

If the intention was to scare Mencho, or cow him into submission, it didn’t work.

Instead, Mencho declared war. In March 2015, a dozen vehicles surrounded police vehicles in Ocotlán, Jalisco, and opened fire. Five police officers were killed and eleven injured. This was just the start.

On April 6, 2015, CJNG gunmen waited for a Mexican police convoy as it wound its way through a mountain highway in northern Jalisco. The vehicles were ambushed as they passed a curve in the road with rock walls on both sides. Gunfire from semi-automatic weapons peppered the vehicles and cut down any officers who tried to get out. Those who sheltered inside were burned alive by grenades and homemade explosives. Fifteen policemen were dead in what became known as the San Sebastián del Oeste ambush.

This remains one of the deadliest single attacks on Mexican security forces by a criminal group.

Then, on May 1, army helicopters spotted a CJNG convoy in which Mencho was believed to be travelling near the town of Villa Purificación in Jalisco. One helicopter, with 18 men on board, was trying to get closer to the convoy when it was hit by two rockets fired from a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher. Several men died at once, according to witness testimony, but others survived even after the helicopter caught fire and crashed to the ground. The gunmen moved in to finish the job and killed several of the survivors before fleeing. Nine Mexican soldiers and policemen lay dead.

Having a military aircraft shot down by a cartel was unheard of in Mexico and this event only enhanced the reputation and coverage of the CJNG as a ruthless threat to national security.

Within days, Jalisco’s security chief survived an assassination attempt in which CJNG gunmen pumped 200 bullets and two grenades into his armoured truck.

The message was clear: don’t come after Mencho. Ever.

Mexican authorities did back off, but due to unforeseen circumstances. In July 2015, weeks after the frenzied attacks in Jalisco, Mexico’s most famous drug narco, El Chapo, escaped from a maximum-security prison. The humiliated Mexican government shifted its attention to recapturing him, and the heat on Mencho died down.

2016 would see Mencho confirmed as Mexico’s most powerful drug lord, especially after El Chapo was recaptured in January.

His successful defiance of authority, his brazen attacks on Mexican police and his wars against criminal rivals across Mexico had earned him godlike loyalty among his men. He had also cemented a broad network of police officers, prosecutors, judges and customs officials, which allowed the CJNG’s drugs to flow mostly uninterrupted.

An example of this influence came in 2016 when a call between Mencho and a Jalisco police commander was publicly leaked. A furious Mencho can be heard berating the police officer and ordering him to move his men away from a certain area. The commander repeatedly pleads that he will comply and order his troops away as Mencho insults and threatens him.

Mencho: Look, you son of a bitch, this is Mencho, man.

Police Officer: What?

Mencho: Get your fucking people to relax. This is Mencho. Get your fucking men to back off or I am going to kill you and your mother and your whole pack of dogs. I have 30 of you identified. I’m even going to kill your damn dogs if you don’t back off. How do you see it?

Police Officer: You’ve got it, Sir. I’ll stand them down at once.

Mencho: No, no, no. Don’t hang up, you son of a bitch. I know where you are.

This unsettling call, which lasts several minutes, was the final time Mencho’s voice is known to have been heard. The voice of a man, heard from off-camera in several CJNG videos published since, has also been claimed to be that of Mencho by Mexican observers.

Mencho Disappears

Mencho’s rise to power marked a transition in Mexico’s criminal landscape. The brutal Zetas, who terrified Mexico with military-style tactics and lurid brutality, were dismantled. Other pretenders, such as the Gulf Cartel in the northeast of the country, or the Knights Templar in Michoacán, did not have the national presence that the CJNG enjoyed.

The Sinaloa Cartel and the CJNG were the “only two powerful cartels left.”

This made them natural enemies, and the war between the Sinaloa Cartel and the CJNG has left thousands dead and continues to rage to this day.

But this level of fame has made Mencho a constant target. The US has placed a $10 million reward for his capture. The Mexican government has put up another $1.5 million.

His wife, Rosalinda, is in prison in reportedly poor health. His son, Menchito, is facing decades behind bars. His brother, Antonio, a senior CJNG boss, was arrested in December 2022 and faces extradition to the United States. Most of the Valencia clan he came up with are in prison or dead.

The elusive kingpin himself, however, has essentially vanished. For a time, atrocities were still directly connected to him. In 2017, a popular YouTuber named Juan Luis Lagunas Rosales released a rap in which he said Mencho could “suck his dick”. Shortly after, CJNG gunmen entered a bar and shot Lagunas fifteen times. He was just 17 years old.

But further news about Mencho’s whereabouts has almost completely dried up. One important detail that has become common knowledge is that he suffers from severe kidney disease. 

According to Mexican security forces, he mostly keeps to a handful of rural mountain villages in Jalisco. In 2020, reports emerged that he had built a small medical facility to attend to him in El Alcíhuatl, a village 250 km southeast of the Jalisco capital, Guadalajara.

His image and name are used frequently by the CJNG in social media posts or on banners, but almost as a cult figure to be revered, not as an active and dangerous kingpin. On special events like Christmas, Easter or Mother’s Day, care packages are sometimes distributed by CJNG in villages under their control. Banners were hung which conveyed good wishes from Mencho and bore his picture.

“Mr. Mencho and the CJNG wish a Happy Day to all the Mothers.” A banner with Mencho’s face hung up in Jalisco in 2021. Source: @Codigo_NegroMX

Reports by the Mexican press have stated he is extremely cautious about using technology and relays orders only through a few hand-picked lieutenants.

But rumours have abounded of his death. In 2015, he was reportedly killed by police in Guadalajara. In 2018, a helicopter apparently opened fire on his convoy and shot him dead. In 2020, Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, personally denied rumours claiming Mencho had died of ill health. And in December 2023, a song, entitled “Ya Se Fue” (He’s Already Gone), was released on YouTube directly claiming Mencho had died.

Some CJNG allies have certainly believed it. In early 2022, Los Mezcales, a small gang in Colima, turned on the CJNG and stated on banners that Mencho was dead. “I only owe respect and loyalty to Mencho,” stated the Mezcales leader.

The response was rapid. Violence erupted and La Vaca was quickly killed. The CJNG-Mezcales feud left dozens dead. But despite all this, the CJNG has provided no concrete evidence Mencho is alive.

This is almost certainly by design. If healthy, Mencho may wish to remain invisible, knowing that to show himself will bring trouble. If sick, he may wish to hide his weakness. If dead, the CJNG may want to avoid fragmentation.

He also serves as a major distraction. As one of the most-wanted men in Mexico and the United States, Mencho is a lightning rod. His face is plastered on most-wanted lists while his family and assets are sanctioned, but this ultimately does little to engage with the more complex reality of the CJNG.

Mexico’s most powerful narco has become a boogeyman.