CJNG FLEXES ITS MUSCLES, MAKES MEXICO PAY FOR ITS KILLING OF EL MENCHO

Did Mexico WANT cities to burn? Ex-CIA chief RICK DE LA TORRE's revelations will challenge everything you thought you knew about cartels

 

By Rick De La Torre 

 

Daily Mail

Feb 24, 2026

 

 

Smoke over Puerto Vallarta. Tractor-trailers burning across major highways. Gunmen erecting checkpoints (Pictured: Puerto Vallarta on February 22)

 

Smoke over Puerto Vallarta. Tractor-trailers burning across major highways. Gunmen erecting checkpoints as if they were a sovereign authority collecting tolls in fear. Tourists confined to resort hallways. Police units pinned down. Soldiers ambushed in broad daylight. Guadalajara's airport, in Mexico's second largest city, thrown into chaos as armed convoys moved with confidence.

That is what happens when a state strikes the head of a cartel machine.

The fall of Jalisco New Generation Cartel's (CJNG) longtime leader, known by his nom de guerre 'El Mencho,' born Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, was never going to pass quietly.

CJNG is not a personality cult orbiting one man. It is a vertically integrated criminal enterprise that operates as a parallel regime. It taxes territory, controls ports, runs industrial-scale fentanyl labs, fields drone units and armored vehicles, and deploys disciplined hit teams with military-grade coordination. It has penetrated municipal governments, state police commands, and segments of the federal structure.

When an organization like that loses its apex figure, it does not retreat. It demonstrates continuity. It burns highways to signal succession is already in motion. It ambushes soldiers to show the chain of command survives the man.

The polite narrative says this is contained fallout. A bold raid. Proof that Mexico can act under pressure from Washington. A decisive blow delivered in a new era of seriousness.

That storyline protects the political class in Mexico City. It avoids the harder question: if retaliation was inevitable, why was it not anticipated and contained?

If Mexico's defense establishment executed the raid with full awareness of CJNG's reach then that demanded preparation.

 

The fall of Jalisco New Generation Cartel's (CJNG) longtime leader, known by his nom de guerre 'El Mencho,' born Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, was never going to pass quietly

 

Vetted rapid-response units staged in likely flashpoints. Coordinated corridor lockdowns across cartel strongholds. Immediate financial seizures to choke liquidity. Follow-on arrests targeting second- and third-tier leadership. Hardened perimeters around airports, ports, refineries, and major commercial arteries.

If those layers were thin, delayed, or symbolic, that is not bad luck. It is the consequence of years of accommodation.

Perhaps even a purposeful Mexican government demonstration of their own fecklessness. A cry for help.

Cartels of this scale do not thrive in a vacuum. They thrive inside political tolerance.

Governors accept geographically contained violence so long as it does not spill into tourist districts or financial centers. Municipal police collect plazas and pass intelligence in exchange for local calm. Judges convert procedural delay into practical impunity. Federal authorities manage criminal power rather than dismantle it because open confrontation carries political cost. Electoral incentives reward short-term quiet over structural reform.

That is how a criminal enterprise matures into a parallel authority.

Now it is asserting itself in daylight.

The consequences do not end at Jalisco's beaches, like Puerto Vallarta. Tourism contracts as travelers rethink risk. Commercial corridors slow as blockades and uncertainty ripple through supply chains. Rival factions probe newly exposed territory, and fragmentation often produces bloodier competition.

Fentanyl production does not pause during that chaos. It recalibrates. American communities absorb the overdoses.

 

That storyline protects the political class in Mexico City. It avoids the harder question: if retaliation was inevitable, why was it not anticipated and contained? (Pictured: President of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo on February 23)

 

CJNG and its competitors already maintain operational nodes inside the United States. They manage distribution networks, enforce debts, intimidate witnesses, and launder proceeds through American financial channels. The violence in Mexico and the damage in the United States are not separate phenomena. They are extensions of the same criminal enterprise.

Cartel leadership will now reassess risk. If calibrated intimidation north of the border could slow or complicate sustained pressure, they will study that option. These organizations are rational. They prefer profit to chaos and generally avoid actions that invite overwhelming U.S. retaliation.

But they probe.

Probing has historically meant targeted violence, intimidation of witnesses, or settling internal disputes on American soil. It has meant threats against family members to silence cooperation. It has meant subcontracted crews and intermediaries to create distance between command and act. None of it resembles an invasion. All of it is designed to protect revenue and test resolve.

Deterrence works when the cost of probing is clear and immediate. The United States is not a permissive battlespace. Federal, state, and local law enforcement capacity is deep. Intelligence authorities are expansive. Financial monitoring is sophisticated. Cartel networks operating inside the country understand this and generally calibrate their activities accordingly.

Which brings us back to the central question.

Was this a headline operation or the opening move in a sustained campaign?

 

That is what happens when a state strikes the head of a cartel machine

 

Mexico must decide whether it intends to dismantle the machine or merely disrupt it. Leadership decapitation without financial strangulation is temporary relief. A serious effort requires coordinated asset seizures inside Mexico, aggressive prosecution of political facilitators, federal intervention in compromised local police forces, judicial reform that ends impunity by delay, and permanent territorial control rather than rotating deployments that concede ground once headlines fade.

Anything less signals the endurance of the cartel and the fatigue of the state.

The United States can reinforce that effort. Continued indictments. Aggressive Treasury designations. Enforcement actions against facilitators operating inside U.S. jurisdiction. Intelligence sharing that enables follow-on arrests. Relentless extradition demands. Economic leverage that ensures cooperation does not drift once public attention moves elsewhere.

Leverage matters. But sovereignty requires will.

Mexico will either be governed by its constitutional authorities or by armed criminal enterprises that burn infrastructure to set the rules.

If the state cannot impose sustained cost on organizations that challenge it with open warfare, it is not asserting control. It is conceding it.

 

                                      

Rick de la Torre is the founder and CEO of Tower Strategy, a federal lobbying firm in Washington. A retired senior CIA operations officer and former Chief of Station, he specializes in national security, energy, trade and geopolitical risk.