The Journal. - Inside Mexico's Decision to Take Down a Drug Lord

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

After Mexican authorities killed El Mencho, the country’s most powerful drug lord, his cartel responded with violence across the country. The operation came amid pressure from the U.S. government on Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum. WSJ’s José De Córdoba explains the power struggle that will ensue among the cartels and what it means for the global drug trade. Ryan Knutson hosts. Further Listening: - Mexico's New Cocaine Kingpin is Cashing In- Drug Cartels' New Weapon: Chinese Money Launderers Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Sunday, Mexican authorities killed one of the world's most powerful drug lords. Violence has erupted across Mexico, following the killing of the country's most wanted drug leader, known as El Mentiono. It happened in Tapalpa, Halisco, about a two-hour drive southwest of Guadalajara. Nemesio Osigera-Servantes was the leader of the powerful Halisco New Generation Cartel, a major trafficker of drugs into the U.S. His name was Nemesio Osigera. And he was known as El Mentiono. After news spread of his death, his cartel retaliated across much of the country. Fire, smoke, and chaos across several Mexican states.

There were roadblocks made of cars that were seized by gunmen and then sent on fire. And some 50 people died, more than 50 people died. Blocked highways, drivers forced out of their cars at gunpoint. You know, it was a very scary moment for the country. That's our colleague Jose de Cordoba, who's based in Mexico City. Were you surprised when you saw that Mexican authorities had taken down El Mentiono? Yes, it was a big surprise, because El Mentiono has been seen by everybody as too big and too powerful to fall. So because he is so powerful and has operations in so many places, many people,

feared that capturing or killing him would be like hitting a beast nest in the sense that it would cause a really violent reaction in lots of places in Mexico, which in a sense is what happened. Now, people are afraid that with Mencho's death, that that will set the stage for a lot of violence as his lieutenants fight to succeed him. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knudsen. It's Wednesday, February 25th. Coming up on the show, The Death of Mexico's Most Powerful Drug Lord. This episode is brought to you by Fidelity.

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Their values change and past performance may not be repeated. So, Jose, you were on our podcast a few months ago talking about the rise of El Mancho. Can you refresh our memory? Who is he and how did he come to power? El Mentiono is a former Mexican cop who actually lived in the U.S. illegally for a number of years and then was deported back to Mexico and joined the police force of a town. And there he married to the cartel and made his way up the chain. By the early 2010s, El Mentiono had risen to become the head of the Hulisco New Generation Cartel.

Over the next few years, his cartel became the main rival to the Sinaloa cartel, which was headed up by the infamous El Chapo. But after El Chapo's arrest in 2016, the Sinaloa cartel fractured, and Almencho seized power. How far-reaching was his empire? What did he control?

The heart of his empire is the Halisco cartel in the state of Helisco, where the state capital is where had one of Mexico's most important cities. He was sort of a shadow government in that state. I'm told that nothing moved without his knowing about it and giving the say-so, but his operations stretched across the country in, you know, in something like two-thirds of the states in Mexico. He had operations in something like 30 foreign countries. Elmancho's cartel became the world's top trafficker of cocaine, according to U.S. and

Mexican authorities. The cartel would transport the drugs by the ton from Colombia to Ecuador, and then north to Mexico by speedboats and semi-submersibles. But becoming the biggest drug lord brings a lot of attention. The Trump administration has put unrelenting pressure on the Mexican government to go after drug cartels ever since Trump assumed the presidency the second time around. he's threatened and imposed tariffs on Mexican goods and basically said that the reason he was doing so was because Mexico was a threat to the United States. The cartels are waging war in America,

and it's time for America to wage war on the cartels. At the start of his second term, President Trump designated drug cartels a terrorist organization, which analysts say can open the door for direct U.S. military action. Trump has, I think, on most phone calls that he's had with Mexican President Claudia Scheimbaum, he's offered to have American troops come in and do either joint operations or solo operations in Mexico.

Jose says that for Mexico, attention from the Trump administration is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, U.S. intelligence, training, and equipment is helpful. But Mexican authorities also want to maintain autonomy. You have to remember that Mexico law. half of his territory in the 19th century to the United States in the Mexican-American War. So there's a long history of U.S. interference in Mexico's domestic affairs that Mexico does not like. So Scheimbaum is playing a very difficult game because she wants to stop at all cost a U.S. intrusion here. Still, Mexican authorities decided to work with U.S. intelligence.

agencies to monitor El Mentiono. And over the last few months, they had a breakthrough. Mexican intelligence had been tracking El Mancho's associates, and they tracked a person who was close to one of his lovers and who delivered the lover to this hideaway where they suspected Mentiono was at. So they were following somebody that happened to deliver a mistress to El Mancho. Yes. And when Mentiono came out and greeted him.

They figured that he was there, and then set in motion this raid. The raid happened in Tapalpa, a town in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Holisco, just a couple hours south of Guadalajara. It's a very beautiful mountain town, colonial town, with a 17th century Jesuit church among the mountains and pine forests. But the battle took place in this place with the cabins, about two miles from the town. Dozens of heavily armed soldiers, armored military vehicles, drones and combat helicopters,

descended onto the normally quiet town. They hit this place really early in the morning. There was a firefight that went on for about five hours, which against these very heavily armed bodyguards, Mancho and two others were wounded and taken on a plane where they died on the way to the hospital. After that, the Helisco cartel started its violent rampage across the country. The cartel responds by carjacking cars and setting them on fire. They set 252 fires or roadblocks in 20 Mexican states.

And so, you know, they basically disrupted the whole country, causing, you know, schools to close, people to stay in the country. and sit it out. So, yes, it was quite a shock. Why did the cartel do this? Why create all this chaos? They wanted to show, you know, the government that they're forced to contend with.

Jose says that the Helisco cartel will also likely start fighting internally. I mean, there are about three of his lieutenants who could be contenders to follow him. They don't like each other much. So everyone is expecting a battle to succeed mensual. Everyone is expecting, you know, a lot of violence as these possible successors fight for the leadership position.

So is the potential for more violence something that Mexican authorities anticipated? I think historically they've gone after cartel bosses who become too big. You know, this is known as the kingpin strategy. go after the top guy. But the problem is that when you do that, a lot of the time that results in a lot of violence, because what you have is that the lieutenants of that organization fight to get control to replace the guy who's just been captured or killed, and the result is a lot of killings. If you look at Sinaloa, for instance, when El Mayo Zambada, one of the main leaders, was kidnapped by a...

another leader, that set off a civil war in which 2,000 people have been killed and 3,000 people have disappeared and the army has really been unable to stop that violence. Mexican authorities said Monday that they deployed thousands of soldiers to restore calm and prevent violence. The country's security minister also said that if the military is able to capture those who had the cartels different armed units, then the risk of a major outbreak of violence, would go down. Coming up, what Elmancho's death might mean for the drug trade. Where are my gloves? Come on, heat. Any day now? Winter is hard, but your groceries don't have to be. This winter, stay warm.

Tap the banner to order your groceries online at walla.com. Enjoy in-store prices without leaving your home. You'll find the same regular prices online as in-store. Many promotions are available both in store and online, though some may vary. On Monday, the Mexican government held a press conference. The press conference, Mexico's defense minister, who's an army general, gave the details about the operation, and the most moving moment was that when he was talking about the losses that the Mexican military had suffered, as I say, you know, at 25 dead, his voice broke.

And that moment really captured the nation because, you know, I think it was unprecedented to see a top military officer react in such an emotional manner to the deaths of his men. President Claudia Shinebomb also spoke. Mexico has forces armed as extraordinary. She basically, what she did was to praise the Mexican soldiers who had done this. And she underlined that this has been a Mexican, a totally Mexican operation,

that there have been no American boots on the ground, although she said that the U.S. had helped with his intelligence. No, there is participation in the operation of forces of the U.S. So, I mean, she would not have wanted to. to have the U.S. come and, you know, take out and mention that's why Mexican troops did it. And so she underlined that it was a Mexican operation that Mexico and the U.S. worked well together against the drug threat, against cartels, but that the U.S. was careful to respect Mexican territorial integrity.

That is, you know, they weren't sending troops in, and any sort of U.S. incursion was not welcome. It seems like she's trying to also thread a bit of a needle in praising President Trump and the U.S.'s help, but also making it clear that this was solely a Mexican operation. Yes, that's precisely what she's doing. She's trying to keep Trump at bay, keep Trump happy, while preventing a U.S. unilateral military action that would cause a big crisis between the two countries. What has the Trump administration been saying about this operation? They praised it.

During the State of the Union address last night, President Trump talked about the U.S. efforts against drug cartels. Really large parts of Mexico have been controlled by murderous drug cartels. That's why I designated these cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. And I declared illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass. destruction. And he specifically called out the operation against El Mancho. We've also taken down one of the most sinister cartel kingpins of all.

You saw that yesterday. Meanwhile, for the people of Mexico, the decision to take out El Mancho will affect everyday life, possibly for a long time. When the leader of the top narco organization is taken out, chaos may ensue, and that chaos is, you know, very difficult for the people who live there to live there because basically many people are killed and business really suffers. You know, Guadalajara is a place where it's one of the sites for the World Cup this summer. So people are worried about security there now.

We're already hearing a lot of reports of people canceling their trips to Mexico and people in the tourism industry being, in the short term, very impacted by this. I mean, I don't think, you know, seeing the pictures of burning cars and plumes of black smoke pouring into the sky are a good advertisement for tourism in Mexico. I mean, there's a trade-off, as I've said, there's a trade-off between maintaining the Pax Narca, you know, the narco piece, and going after the bosses and breaking it. and then having all this violence break out. But that's not to say, obviously, that Mexico has to maintain law and order because you cannot allow mobsters or drug bosses

to run parts of your country. What do you think this will mean for the drug trade? Do you think this will change anything? No. I mean, look, drugs is driven by demand by American demand, which is huge. And, you know, until the United States does something about that, this is nothing.

This is like whack-a-mole, you know, and it's an eternal game of whack-a-mole. It's been going on for decades. It's, you know, it makes for good scripts for Netflix movies, and that's about it. That's all for today. Wednesday, February 25th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal.

Additional reporting in this episode by Veribiribus, Bergen Gruen, Santiago Perez, and Cajel Vias. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.