El Mencho Death: Mexico Killed Its Most Wanted Drug Lord and the Country Was on Fire Within Hours

For over a decade, Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes was the most wanted man in Mexico. The United States Drug Enforcement Administration had a 15 million dollar reward sitting on his head. The Mexican Army had been hunting him for years. On February 22, 2026, it finally ended. Mexican special forces moved into the small town of Tapalpa in the western state of Jalisco, backed by direct intelligence support from the United States. The El Mencho death, 59 years old and the boss of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, was shot during the operation and died of his wounds on the way to Mexico City. The El Mencho death made headlines around the world within minutes. And within hours, Mexico was burning.

He Was Built by Poverty and Shaped by America

El Mencho was not born into power. He grew up in a very poor rural village called Culotitlán in Michoacán, a state that has produced more cartel leaders than almost anywhere else in Mexico. He left school early, grew avocados to survive, and crossed into California illegally in the 1980s looking for a better life. He was arrested multiple times in the United States and convicted of heroin trafficking, spending time in prison before being deported back to Mexico in the early 1990s. That is when everything changed. He climbed through the ranks of an existing cartel, married into the organisation, and around 2009 started building the Jalisco New Generation Cartel from the ground up. What he created was different from anything Mexico had seen before. He trained his people like a military unit. He used armed drones and explosives against government forces. He built a network that eventually stretched across more than 40 countries. The man who once sold avocados in a village became the head of a global criminal empire.

The Betrayals That Followed Him His Whole Life

Part of what drove El Mencho was a very personal relationship with betrayal. His own co-founder, Erick Valencia Salazar, eventually broke away from him and became a senior figure in a rival cartel called Nueva Plaza. A former CJNG member known as El Cholo also defected, joined the same rival group, and murdered one of El Mencho’s key financial operators. El Mencho ordered El Cholo killed but the hit failed and El Cholo went on to help found yet another rival organisation. The cartel survived all of it because El Mencho kept tight control through fear and loyalty. But the same tight control meant no clear successor was ever properly prepared. His son, known as El Menchito, was already sitting in a United States prison. His stepson Juan Carlos Valencia was seen as the most likely next in line but no clean handover plan existed. The El Mencho death left the whole organisation without a clear leader, which is exactly the kind of situation that turns into a war.

What Happened Across Mexico After the News Broke

The response was immediate and it was everywhere. Around 250 roadblocks appeared across Mexico within hours, with cartel members using hijacked trucks, buses and private vehicles that they set on fire to block highways across Jalisco and 19 other states including Michoacán, Guanajuato, Colima, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas. Guadalajara, one of the cities set to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup just months away, had gunfire and burning petrol stations. Puerto Vallarta, a major tourist destination full of international visitors, had smoke rising over beachfront hotels as airlines including Southwest, Delta, United, Alaska, Air Canada and WestJet cancelled all flights in and out. The US Embassy told American citizens to stay where they were. The British, Canadian, Australian and French governments sent out similar warnings. In Guanajuato alone, more than 70 attacks were reported across 23 municipalities in a single day. El Mencho’s right hand man, known as El Tuli, was named as the person organising the retaliation and was reportedly offering money for every soldier killed before security forces tracked him down and shot him dead the same day.

Experts Say the Hard Part Comes Now

The Mexican government called it a victory and in some ways it clearly is. But security experts are being very direct about what comes next. Vanda Felbab-Brown from the Brookings Institution told Al Jazeera that the cartel still has every resource it had before Sunday and that the violence following the El Mencho death could reshape the criminal landscape for years. Security analyst Chris Dalby compared removing El Mencho to firing the head of a large company and expecting it to collapse, pointing out the CJNG was specifically built so that no single person’s removal could bring it down. The Sinaloa Cartel is already a very recent and very clear example of what happens next. After their leader El Mayo Zambada was arrested in 2024, the cartel descended into an internal war that cost hundreds of lives. Many analysts expect something similar is already starting.

Vestiworld Take

El Mencho was dangerous, destructive and responsible for enormous suffering. His death is real and it matters to every community that lived under his cartel’s shadow. But the story does not end here and anyone saying it does is not being honest. The organisation he built across 40 countries was designed from the start to survive without him. The 250 roadblocks that appeared within hours of his death were not just revenge. They were a message to every rival cartel and every government watching: the CJNG is still standing, still organised and still willing to set the country on fire to prove it. Mexico now faces a dangerous power vacuum just weeks before the eyes of the world land on it for the World Cup. What comes next will not be clean or quick. El Mencho may be gone but the machine he built is still very much running.

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