The Underworld Podcast - El Mencho and CJNG: Mexico's Most Wanted and Sadistic Narco

Episode Date: January 11, 2022

He’s a recluse, a cockfighting high-roller, a former cop and a maniac. But will Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, aka El Mencho, do what he’s been threatening for years and become the most powerful cartel boss on the planet? From avocados to abogados, weed to coke to fentanyl, Mencho is a narco so bloodthirsty his men are compared to ISIS. Can the Mexican state cut him down to size? Or will a lifelong quest to build a citadel in his home state of Michoacan come off, ruling local civilians with a sadistic iron fist? We look at the past, present and future of who might just be the scariest criminal we’re profiled on this show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamava Theater.com, only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter. April 2015, around 3 p.m. on a winding pass in western Halisco State, Mexico. Blue skies and a burning sun and a road carved between two mountain sides. A convoy of police officers is snaking along the Sun-Kiss Highway towards Guadalajara.

the country's third largest city. These are no ordinary beat cops. They're elite troops of the Fuerza Unica Helisco, the state's top men. As the convoy rounds a curve in the road, just outside the town of San Sebastian del Oeste, there it is, a barricade of burning vehicles, an impassable for inferno.

The cops are blocked in, no way out. Then, from above, a deafening explosion of fire, High-powered machine guns and grenades raining down on the trucks from either side of the valley. No chance to fight back. Those who climb out of the vehicles are cut down by gunfire. Those who can't have burned alive. Within moments, it's over. Fifteen cops are dead, five are wounded.

The gunmen escape unhurt. It's the deadliest attack on state forces since 2010, a new grim chapter in a Mexican drug war. that to date has claimed 100,000 lives. Its brutal episodes are often met with indifference by a jaded population that's had to cope with daily threats of death for years. This slaughter, however, shocks the nation. Shootouts with criminal groups are common, says security expert Alejandro Hope. What is rare for government forces to come off worse than the criminal groups.

Within hours, Hilisco officials have their perps. the Cartel de Halisco Nueva Herracion, C-JNG for short. A Cinaloa splinter cell led by a madman named El Mention. These guys are something different. The drug war metastasized into a coal of personality that kills for fun. The CJNG are, quote, people without scruples of conscience, who, with their vile actions, harm Mexicans, their families, their heritage and their way of life. says Mexico's defense secretary.

This cowardly attack, he adds, will not go unpunished. The Holisco ambush is more than murder. It's an all-out-assault on the state, a changing of the guard in Mexico's dizzying cartel history. It's also a bloody homecoming for a narco terrorist laying claim to the land he left decades previous. And it's just the beginning of a terrifying tit-for-tat that will leave thousands of dead

and whole swaves of gorgeous Helisco and neighboring Michoacan, a barren war-torn mess. Welcome to the Underworld podcast. Hi guys, and welcome, as always, to the show that teaches you how actually, despite tons of fanboys online, the War of Drugs is actually like a massive failure. I'm your host, Sean Williams, and I'm joined as ever by Danny Gold, and I think we're about to head out on assignments, which I'm going to call a late Christmas miracle. Is there much going on over there? Good New Year?

Yeah, dude, I'm heading to St. Louis in January. Where would you other be? You know, a little fentanyl, little murder, all that, all that fun stuff. That's your beat. The murder beat. Yeah. Where are you going? I'm off to Sicily in a couple of weeks, actually. That's going to be nice. Some sunshine. I mean, it's grim over here. Definitely worse than St. Louis and January. Jesus. Yeah, slightly fewer murders, but also mafia, a lot of grim shit. So, yeah, back in the game. So I think this is our second episode into the new year and our page. Patreon's up and running again, guys. Like we've got a couple of interviews going on there. You've got a pretty cool one, right? Yeah, on Capagon with Caroline Rose, who's like one of the premier exports on the drug. But yeah, patreon.com slash the Underworld podcast.

Throw us some pocket change, bonus episodes, help keep supporting us and whatnot. Yeah, those gym memberships don't come cheap, and I really need to get over the bread sauce over Christmas. But, yeah, I did a bonus with Kagan Hamilton advice a few days ago. And actually, we spoke all about his trips to Mitchell Aikam. with the CJNG and their rivals of the Cartels Unidos and Alta Defensis and how he basically shot himself calling out the wrong patron or boss at a cartel checkpoint. You should definitely listen to

that. And like we said then in that interview, like despite El Mancho being the most powerful, rich, godawful, bloodthirsty gangster pretty much anywhere on earth, there's a massive black hole of info about him. And a ton of the US TV coverage is just like outright bullshit. Josh Eels published a cracking feature on him back at Rolling Stone a few years back, but yeah, this is like a show where the reading list we post to the Patreon is really going to come in handy if you want to learn more of the back of it.

Yeah, I just want to say too, you know, I think we've kind of stayed away from the cartel stuff a bit, especially the leaders. You know, I did do that Acapulco episode, but, you know, a lot of them, there's just so much out there. And there are some people that really know the intricacies so well, they know all the players, every commander. Like, you've ever seen the Narco footage board

on Reddit? It's just, you know, we are going to bring you that level of detail, but we'll tell you the story. And if we get something wrong, email Sean, because I really don't care unless you're a Patreon member. But anyway, let's get going. Yeah, if you're on like R slash L. Mencho and you're an admin, maybe like skip this episode and go back to whatever other amazing ones. But, I mean, I know like, yeah, a lot of our listeners keep a keen eye on a drug war south of the East Border. But for those of you who might not, your main encounter with the Hellisco new generation, might be a 2020 video released by them featuring like row upon row of armored tacticals, tanks,

and guys dressed in military facieks, sporting US machine guns, sniper rifles, grenade launchers, the works. Scary shit and a massive show of false and loyalty for the guy they call Mencho, which is a phonetic derivation of his name, Nemesio Osigera Civantes. Some people also call him El Senor de los Gallos, or Lord of the Roosters, or Lour of the Roosters, or the cox, if you prefer, because apparently he's into dropping 100 grand a pop-on cockfights. What is it with gangsters loving cough fights? I mean, I've been to them. They're not that much fun, but these guys just love it, you know, like the Cuban guy that we do the story on.

Yeah, I've been to a couple, and they're just awful. Like, they're really disgusting. And there's no, like, there's no major climax or anything. They're just rubbish. Anyway. Boring. Yeah. They suck.

Cot fights suck. Here is an intro to Mencho from Joshio's Rolling Stone Piece that just meant. mentioned. Quote, only a handful of photos of Mencho are known to exist, and even the State Department's description of him is comically nondescript. He's 5 for 8, 165 pounds, brown eyes, brown hair. Wait a minute, is that me? Narco Balladeers have celebrated his room with love for fast motorbikes and a hundred thousand dollar cop fights, but otherwise he's a cipher. Over 25 years of working in Mexico, you'd run into guys who had met Chapo who would talk about him. The former DEA agent says that's in the piece. But with Mentiono, you don't hear that. He's kind of a ghost. And it's true

that in many ways Mencho is sort of the anti-C Chapo. He doesn't care about partying or women or celebrities or the high life. Well, it's kind of like El Mio too, right? I mean, I know he does care about some of that stuff, but he's supposed to be a lot more disciplined behind in the shadows and, you know, operating like that as opposed to Chapo. Yeah, I mean, as this show goes on, I think you're going to see that we kind of get the narcos that we deserve from this drug war, and it really does get worse. Mentiono rarely spends more than two nights in the same spot. Some say that's one of the reasons for this so-called homecoming in Machuacan that we'll get to a bit later that was in the intro.

And in many ways, yeah, he's the devil that this disastrous war on drugs deserves. He's psychopathic, he's ruthless, and he's bent on nothing more than a complete domination of the drugs trade. He's also the most wanted person in Mexico, no? Oh, yeah, yeah. And worth a billion bucks, although, you know, what does that mean? But, yeah, I mean, we get a lot of, like, what is to say this, actually, we get a lot of like weird cartel fanboys and girls on our IG popping up. So let me tear off the tail of this guy with some of the things his cartel has actually done.

So in 2013, for example, CJNG foot soldiers raped, murdered, and set fire to a 10-year-old girl. they'd misidentified as a rival cartel member's daughter. Two years later, 2015, CJNG, Sicario's duct tape sticks of dynamite to a man and his high school-aged son, laughing and filming their subsequent grisly deaths. There's a reason the fed's like comparing a CGM to ISIS. Quote, the manner in which they kill people, the sheer numbers, it's unparalleled even in Mexico, a DE agent has told Rolling Stone before.

Yeah, I mean, we all love to watch narcos and make jokes here and there, but these are extremely bad people. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, who doesn't like a gold-plated nine millimeter? But yeah, this is something a little bit different. And the ISIS comparison, actually, it kind of bears out beyond the act of violence alone. Is that also about how a state breakdown and a lack of underworld control leads to the birthing of an event way more horrible, even worse monster? But before we get there, let's have back to 1966. or 1964, depending on your source, in the two-hors town of Naranjo de Chila,

in the Mijuacan municipality of Aguilia. This little scratch is where Mentiono is born into poverty, skipping school to help his family grow avocados. These are the primary export at Mishuacan, actually, alongside lime. So if you're fond of guac, chances are you've been eating produce grown in the territory of the CGANG. The whole cartels controlling the avocado market, right?

that was a thing a couple years ago. I feel like I saw a bunch of stories on that. Yes, a huge thing, and it's still going on. I mean, like, whole turf wars are being full over the avocados alone, like aside from the drugs. And it's in these avocado fields that the young men show actually gets his first taste of organized crime. When a local family called the Valencia's, hires him to keep an eye on things, make sure folks aren't stealing the crop and so on. Now, this Valencia family is known as the avocado cartel, because they like stashing weed inside the fruit and they'll eventually level up into the millennial cartel when they start planting marijuana and puppy for dope. These guys are so powerful that one of them, a patriarch named Jose, becomes local

mayor in 1989. But by then, Mencho himself, he's actually in the States. He emigrates to California as a 14-year-old and immediately gets in trouble a bunch of times. In September 1992, Mencho's older brother Abraham heads to a San Fran bar called Imperial to do a dope deal. And he tagged along as a lookout. But he realizes that the buyers are using neat, stacked $100 bills instead of used loose ones. And he calls them out as cops, that's Mencho. He tells his brother never to do business with these guys again, but it's too late. Cops arrest the pair and sentenced Monso to five years at West Texas prison. Three years later, he's released on patrol and deported back to Mexico. then he becomes a state cop in the Holisco town of Tomatlan.

Wow, that paragraph needs a lot of processing, but also like Sharp Kid, right, with the bills and more practical advice from the podcast for everyone out there. Yeah, I mean, this guy is pretty dead-eyed, and it's going to come out a lot more as we go through the show. I mean, Mencho kicks off his criminal career south of the border as a cop, which is pretty much all you need to know, about police corruption in Mexico. He works his way through the ranks of the millennial cartel,

which now has close connections to South American narcos like the Meja Ying guys, and by the early 2000s, they're getting into synthetic drugs alongside the Mexican Chinese kingpin, Shen Li Yey Gon, who we should probably do a different show about sometime. Yeah, I mean, I'm interested already. And also, Chinese laborers, like immigrants, they were the first ones who brought opium to Mexico, I think, in the 1920s around then. And they were actually kicked out in the 30s after locals took over the rackets post prohibition. So that's kind of how the opium market started there in the heroin. Yeah, absolutely.

We actually got into that bit with the kind of like past of El Chapo as well with Noah. That episode we did, I think, like a few months ago. And in 2003, the state actually captures the millennial cartels leader, Armando Valencia Cornelio. and it sides with the burgeoning in Sinaloa cartel as part of this so-called Pax Sinaloa that's kind of holding the drug industry together just in Mexico under El Chapo. So wait, where is Mancho in this? He's a leader in the millennial cartel. Well, the millennial cartel is essentially a family business, so he's not like right at the top, but he's worked his way through, so he's a pretty prominent figure in that cartel by this point.

And by the way, it's no coincidence that all this millennial stuff playing out in Hale. Elisco State. There's pristine beaches, mountains, but it's way more than a tourist paradise. It's warm, temperate, perfect farmland. A bit like Israel, right? You throw anything in the ground, it grows. It's also a cultural ground zero. Mariachi, tequila, sombrillos. They're all from Halisco. The state motto is Halisco is Mexico. Halesco is Mexico. If you're looking at Mexico on a map, like where is it geographically? It's kind of on the Pacific coast as the country bends around, kind of on a parallel longitudely, is that the right way, with Mexico City. So it's not billion miles away, but it's like Guadalajara is just slightly inland. Yeah, just as the country kind of bends around as it goes to all Central America. So sort of two thirds of the way down the country.

What's more? Halisco State Capital City, Guadalajara, is home to a thriving farmer industry. I mean, that is ever so slightly useful if you're an upstart cartel, and you want to pivot to cheap, easy to make methamphetamine. Oh yeah, and where are you going to get the precursor drugs? Well, there's a giant port on the Pacific coast where boats are just pouring in from all over Asia. It really is amazing the role that ports play in a location becoming a, you know, burgeoning organized crime location. I mean, it makes obvious sense, but still interesting to think about.

Yes, I mean, it's almost 100% at the time. Here's a September 2021 report by Van der Felbad Brown at the Brookings Institute. Quote, for decades, the state has been a major drug trafficking hub and since 2006, the symbol of Mexico's anti-crime policies. But while former president Felipe Calderon made Michoacan, the original epicenter of the war against the cartels, President Andres Manuel López Obrador essentially gave up on tackling them. However, the absence of a central government policy to confront the cartels has neither lessened violence in Mexico nor reduced CGM repression and brazenness. So we're going to get to Lopez Obrador, known to many by his initials AMLO, soon. But at this point, 10 to 15 years back from now, Halisco is a big fat tinderbox.

And that packs in a lower that I mentioned, it's pretty much all smoke and mirrors. On October 28, 2009, a gun battle breaks out between millennium men and Mexican army troops in Tlauomo de Suniga, Halisco. Those indigenous names really screw me up, so sorry guys. Anyway, Mexico, after this point, extradites Oscar Orlando Naba Bilincia, Elobo, or the wolf, after the shootout. And suddenly there's a massive power vacuum in that cash cow state helisco and a bunch of splinter organizations come out of it. Parsing through the cartel wars is exhausting, seriously. I mean, you can look back on the Acapulco episode two.

There's just so many splinterings and alliances and people turning on each other. It's really a tough thing to figure out. Yeah, I mean, it's another practical way that we don't just want to do cartel stuff all the time because it's like, I mean, there are two reasons for me. One is this and the other is just, it's depressing. man it's like so depressing anyway I'm not going to get too into the weeds about all of these different

warring factions micro cartels and leaders that pop up during this era but essentially former members of the Sinaloa millennio and other groups break off and they start sparring for control when I say sparring it's a bit worse than that Los Zetas

they're the scary former army guys they form an alliance with a mishmash alliance with self-styled auto defense us, that's basically paramilitary vigilantes, called the cartels unidos, or united cartels, or more simply, la Resysencia. When a former Sinaloa Capo, Nacho is killed by security forces in 2010, that is when Mentiono makes his move. At first, his guys go by a simple name, Matazetas, the Zetas killers. Soon after, the mutilated bodies of three men are found in Cancun next to a message.

quote, we are the new group Matazetas and we are against kidnapping extortion and we will fight them in all states for a cleaner Mexico. Maybe bear that emancipatory message in mind when I'm telling you this next story. So in September 2011, two trucks dumped 35 bodies on a main road in the port city of Veracluse right in the middle of rush hour. 23 men, 12 women, half naked, face down on the tarmac, most of them tortures and strangled to death. Beside them a scrawled message, there's a new owner of this turf. I mean, doesn't that sound like the start of a new shining era? It just so happens that state troopers are carrying out a bunch of raids on the Zetas at that precise time.

Clean house, perhaps. Wait, so the state police are with Mancho? Some people say yes, some people say no. It seems like MENCHO is kind of like piggybacking on the back of these massive anti-ZETUS raids. And a local police chief actually claims that every single one of the 35 dead has a record in organized crime. Quote, there is nothing in this event that affects the civilian population. I mean, I've got a few questions about that. If I saw 35 bodies on the highway, Russia, maybe it does affect people.

A year later, the Mexican army narrowly avoids capturing El Mencho. after a raid on a Guadalajara apartment. The next spring, he releases a video to YouTube, flanked by Balaclava-clad mercenaries, in which a spokesman delivers yet another message. Bark dogs, he says. But while you're barking, know that I am advancing. Hey, sweetie, your mother showed me this Carvana thing for selling the car.

I'm going to give it a try. Wish me luck. Me again, I put in the license plate. It gave me an offer. Unbelievable. Okay, I accepted the offer. They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway. I haven't even left my chair. It's done.

The car is gone. I'm holding a check. Anyway, Carvana, give it a whirl. Love you. So good, you'll want to leave a voicemail about it. Sell your car today on... Carvana. Pick up fees may apply.

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Go to cabotaUSA.com flash disclaimers for full disclaimers. So does he have a big force here? Because it sounds like he's taking on Zetas who are just like, you know, known for being pretty ferocious and pretty violent. Like they were the first iteration, I guess, of the hypervivalves. violent cartel group thing. Yeah. At this point, I think both Zetas and Menchos guys are pretty relatively small in number compared to the major cartels, but like Mencho is definitely sort of snowballing his

men and trying to sort of completely run over the Zetas. Here's Eduardo Buscaglia, an organized crime expert, speaking to MVS radio, quote, What we are seeing in Mexico is typical of a process of paramilitarization in which different groups seek to wipe territories clean of their rivals. The groups are fighting over 22 different illegal markets, not just drugs, and that produces an algy of violence. So remember those avocados and limes and the ports, obviously? I mean, there's plenty more besides drugs to leach off in Halisco.

And despite their good guy image, the CJNG have no problem extorting farmers and threatening, torturing or murdering any civilians in their way. At first, Menchos Capos carry out killings on behalf of the Sinolawa cartel. In 2012, they actually perpetrate a massacre in Nuevo Laredo. So they're like an enforcement wing at this point? Yeah, he's kind of like just playing all sides. He's playing every single person off against themselves and just seeing how he can grow his own organization.

But soon enough, they're big enough to strike it out alone. And a 2015 ambush on the highway outside Guadalajara in the intro to this show, that is a calling car to the state itself. In response, the Mexican state launches Operation Halisco, a massive assault aimed at cutting down Mencho's business. But he's ready for them. On May 1st, 2015, CJNG soldiers lay siege to Guadalajara itself. They throw up 30 roadblocks and one henchmen even shoots down a Cougar EC-725,

helicopter. It's considered the most brazen attack on the Mexican military since the start of the drug war 10 years previous. Here's Josh Eels again in that feature story for Rolling Stone. Quote, in the hours that followed the operation, Mencho doubled down on the terror, setting fire to dozens of hijacked buses, trucks, gas stations and banks throughout Helisco, snarling traffic and bringing the state to its knees. The US consulate warned its citizens to shelter in place. The Mexican government had to send in 10,000 troops to secure the state. According to a former DEA agent, the chaos was designed to help Mencho escape, a tactic the cartel reportedly learned from Israeli commandos. I've heard about Israelis meeting with them,

snipers and stuff, an agent tells him. It's a technical use of force you've never seen with Mexican cartels. Yeah, it's going to be, I mean, mercenaries, I think. There's a lot of those in Mexico. know guys we were talking to that were in Altar. They had a bunch of Guatemalan mercenaries. And I know that South African ones have been there as well. I feel like, you know, there's just a whole shady economy of mercenaries like that that have worked in cartels before. Yeah, I mean, I guess it's impossible to keep them away, right?

Because there's billions of dollars at stake and a whole criminal economy that's just begging for them. Yeah, this guy, when we were talking to him, he was like, this is my guys from El Salvador, these are my guys from Guatemala, and they're all just Merks. nuts yeah and and a lot of these guys uh the mexican guys they're willing to die for el mencho it's this slender quiet maniac who's into flash motorcycles and cop fights stone cold killer in fact one time there is a shootout at a fair and a guy jumps on a grenade to avoid mencho getting hit so like el chapo he's created this powerful cult of personality about himself but he's different he moves in the shadows i read actually that he supposedly hides out in the mountains on a kidney dialysis machine running things from bed so no wonder he hates moving about if that's true this is chris dalby of insight crime quote he's very secretive he does not show himself he's not a man of the people like el chapo who cultivated that cult of personality who was seen engaging with people a little bit

like pablo eskabar he is part of an evolution of drug kingpins who want to keep themselves in the shadows I guess I've got a bit of issue with that quote because it is a cult personality he just isn't out there like shaking hands and Keegan Hamilton's vice docco got into this personality cult a bit too where he's talking to CJNG guys and they're speaking about Mencho

like he's the Pope I mean although he's given like to murdering anyone he doesn't like I guess they're not going to give the most balanced answer about their boss one thing is definitely true though this guy is extremely rich and powerful when Chapo himself gets nabbed in

2017, it causes yet another vacuum in the drug industry. And by all accounts, MENCHO has filled it. Some think he's personally worth a billion, although, as I said before, these are pretty foggy figures at best. Yeah, I mean, Mayo's kind of right there too, right? It's not just Mancho. Correct, yeah. And they seem to not be stepping on each other's toes too much at the moment, although I'm sure I'll get loads of pelters for that. But the US has slapped a $10 million reward on Mancho's head, which I mean I would really like to see that episode of Dog the Powny Hunter, but you've got to doubt anyone is going to trade in MENCHO given the risk. According to the DEA, the Sinaloa cartel is still the most powerful in the US,

controlling almost all of the eastern seaboard, much of the southwest and large parts of Florida. But the CGM holds sway in tons of California, Rust Belt, Seattle, coastal Texas, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Mike Vigil, who's a former DEA chief, told British Ravis, the sun that, quote, I would describe El Mentiono as hyperviolent and extremely cunning, but not ostentatious like most drug traffickers. Make no doubt about it. Melmencho is deadlier than the rattlesnake and totally more deadly than El Chapo. El Mentiono is very different from the Sinaloa cartel and that he is invested a lot of money

in creating paramilitary forces which are very well armed and they operate in armored vehicles. And vigil goes on, quote. Most of the drug traffickers, they invest in shopping malls, dairy farms, real estate, jewelry. But El Mentioncho is very astute, and he invests more equipment for his men and to get more men into the ranks of Holisco New Generation. He's heavily protected by these individuals, so the chances of El Mentiono being captured in the near future are very minimal. And here's a brief excerpt for the 2017 book Cartel Wives by Mia and Olivia Flores,

who are two wives of high-ranking Sinai. lower cartel members, quote, Mencho uses shoulder-held rocket launchers to shoot down military helicopters, and he actually set one part of Guadalajara on fire. Everyone, from the police all the way up to federal agents, feared him because he was a total maniac. Is there any rhyme and reason to him just being a total psychopath? Like, is there any sort of armchair psychology analysis or anything in his background that kind of gives way to that or why he's pushed so much for? further than the other cartels or it's just like the natural progression. I mean, to give you my own like armchair and possibly a couple of points,

uh, punditry, like, isn't the cartel stuff like the ultimate expression of just cutthroat business? So, you know, whoever's winning that is just the person who's willing to go out and do the most extreme stuff. And Mancho is just like the ultimate encapsulation of that, right? He's, he doesn't care about killing people. He has, seemingly no morals. He doesn't even care about formulating some kind of an ego trip. He just wants to sit in the shadows

and just fucking win this entire drug industry. So that's kind of way I see it. So yeah, I think there's like pretty good basis to call him a psychopath. And a big reason for the rapid growth of the CJNG has been its reliance on weed, meth and more recently, fentanyl.

Now meth's reasonably easy to produce and you don't need to be taking producers from Peru, Colombia or whatever, out for dinner to schmooze them. You're answerable to nobody. And one thing the Mexican state has been able to do reasonably well is seize and destroyed poppy and weed seeds. Uh, seeds fields. And besides, weeds mostly legal now in the States anyway.

But that has caused synthetic production to skyrocket. Meth seizures have more than doubled. From 120,000 pounds in 2016 to 18 to almost 275,000 pounds from 2018 until now. Anne Milgram, she's the current head of the DEA, has said that, quote, the cartels are mass producing these pills in Mexico mostly. And they're making them look like they're real oxycodone,

like their real hydrocodone, percocet, Adderall, and then they're bringing them flooding into the US and falsely advertising them, marketing them as if they're real pharmaceuticals. That's really interesting. And the CGA and G has also been busy diversifying went into extortion, money laundering, kidnapping, petroleum theft on the Pacific Coast,

and even human trafficking. You name it, these guys are deep into it. In 2017, the CJNG even spawns its own splinter group, Nueva Plaza Cartel. In 2017, a finance guy for the cartel named Marcos Hernandez or El Colombiano, I don't know why, tells El Mentiona bunch of robberies that one of his closest confidence Carlos Enrique Sanchez has committed without his bosses say so. Sanchez, nicknamed El Cholo,

I know Cholo's like just a word for a guy who's tied up in crime, right? It's like an L.A. thing for, you know, homeboy, fellow gang member, things like that. I think I know it from GTA for something. But apparently it's also a derogatory word for someone, somebody of mixed indigenous heritage. Anyway,

when El Cholo gets wind of this, he gets Colombiano whacked in the coastal city of Puerto Vallata, which enrages El Mancho, who dispatches a team of hitmen to knock off El Cholo at an operation he's running himself in Guadalajara. Does this all make sense? I feel like this stuff is dizzying sometimes. It is.

Yeah, it is. But in August 2017, before the hits carried out, the guy in charge of the hit squad is murdered himself, sparking Nueva Plasas, breaking off, and a war between the two rivals. Now, the Nueva Paisa, I keep doing Spanish accents, I never did Mexican Spanish, sorry guys, becomes a producer of drugs. And it never gets into the metropolitan centre of Guadalajara, Mexico's third largest city.

But it's clearly a huge problem for El Meno. And El Cholo mostly follows his own boss's lead. He lays low and he goes by a different, like a bunch of different pseudonyms. The Sinaloa cartel even starts backing his plan to rob the CJNG of its 10. territory. So you get these kind of like huge cartels paying little street gangs and smaller cartels to kind of knock out rivals, which is crazy. In 2018, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Amlo, as we mentioned earlier, he wins Mexico's presidential election. And he pledges something pretty radical. He is going to end the drug war. Like, you know, uh, plot twist. He doesn't.

The leader, like, he wins with slogans like, hugs, not gunshots. And he says in his July 2018 victory speech, quote, the failed crime and violence strategy will change. We will address the root causes of crime and violence. Since then, Amlo has turned away from Mexico's previously stated mission to bring kingpins to justice.

In December 2019, he announced his official end to the drug war, saying, there is officially no more war. We want peace and we're going to achieve peace. No capos have been arrested because that is not our main purpose. The main purpose of the government is to guarantee public safety. What we want is security to reduce the daily number of homicides. Yeah, it doesn't appear to be working. No, it really doesn't.

And I mean, like, on principle, fine. I mean, like, who wants the army rolling around killing people? Well, maybe some Mexicans, actually, given what's going on. At the same time, Amlo's trying to have his Gandhi moment, the country's statisticians are recording their highest ever murder rate, with warring cartels and spiraling drug production. A security expert that I mentioned earlier, Alejandro Hope, great name, tells AP, quote,

his anti-crime strategy barely changes anything. It's not different from that of previous governments, and even accentuates the use of the armed forces for public security. That's pretty damning. So in December 2018, early on a Saturday morning, just ahead of Amlo's swearing in, this is how bad it is, someone actually tosses a grenade through the window of the U.S. consulate in Guadalajara. It's unclear whether the Nueva Plaza or C.J.N.G is to blame. But like we say all the time, it's probably best not to be chucking grenades at the Americans if you want to continue running your illicit drug business in peace. Yeah, it's just good practical advice. It's really one of the evergreens that we do on this.

And the worst episode of this bubbling cartel war comes in March 2019. When three film students are kidnapped in Guadalajara, they're taken to a nearby house and tortured to death. Before one of the murder squad, a rapper called QBA, dissolves the student's bodies in acid. Apparently, the Nueva Plaza has mistaken these students for Mencho's men. And this brings back memories of 2014 and Ayotzinapa. And there's an outcry all over Mexico.

For those who don't know, that's when all the students on that school bus were disappeared. I mean, murdered, yeah? Yeah. Like dozens, right? Just one of the more than 100? All-time worse. I think it was like 40-something, perhaps, when they accidentally hired a truck that was allegedly being used to ship drugs and the local cops. worked with the cartels that have them killed and burnt and yeah just like one of the all-time

worst moments in the drug war in june 2020 mexico city police chief omar garcia harfuch is driving to work through the upmarket tree-lined lomas dear chapel tepec neighborhood when three gunmen disguised as road workers they open fire they pepper his black SUV with bullets and kill two bodyguards and a pass-a-by. Harfuch blames the C.J.N.G. tweeting later that, quote, our nation must continue to stand up to this cowardly organized crime.

This is fresh off the back of the Battle of Kuliacan, when an entire city ground to a standstill over the arrest of El Chapo's son. So this latest episode is a massive embarrassment for the Mexican state, and Amlo, of course. But he remains unbowed. He says the killing is, quote, undoubtedly related to the work that is being done to guarantee peace and tranquility.

Yeah. How did CJNG become this, for lack of a better term, like kind of hottest new thing on the cartel scene? I hate phrasing like that, but I just remember even hearing about them back when I was in Mexico reporting in like 2017 as like this terrifying new group that was taking over. And I think before that it was like Las Zetas. I mean, is it just like the group that kind of comes in with the most barbarous, just brutal activities becomes this like talked about group. I just, it's interesting to think about because I don't think, I mean, were they ever the most powerful or most profitable? I mean, it's, it's kind of a

tiny bit of Colom A and most of Columbian, Column B, and Column B being the kind of barbarity, yeah, like they did kind of sort of chop and change in their relations with various other cartels, and they did really well at climbing sort of to the top money and kind of influence why. But it really was this idea that these guys are killing for fun. There's like a really weird refrain, I think, in the drug war, where there's some degree of killing that's sort of accepted as part of a cartel's rise to the top. And I think the Sinaloa cartel has more or less managed to keep that rep somehow

as sort of only killing for business, as if that's some kind of a positive thing. but the CJ and G have really turned killing into a bit of a sort of like gross art form I mean we heard about with these 35 bodies dumped on the highway all kinds of other disgusting ways of killing people when and we're going to get back into this shortly a kind of quiet methodical approach to taking over various regions would actually probably be better

and that kind of instilling terror into people is one of the reasons that a lot of of experts and officials compare them to ISIS. And I think it kind of, I think it has a bit of truck. So perhaps at this point, and this, this is just after this June 2020 attack on the police chief, perhaps now the heat is getting a little too much for Mancho. And he's looking for a suitably grim way to backtrack from the attack on Halfwich. In March, El Cholo is captured by CJNG forces, handcuffed and thrown in front of a camera,

flanked by men in body gear holding US military firearms. Quote, I met in Mexico City with Omar Garcia Harfuch so that he could give me support, since we were both against the C.J. N.G. That's what Cholo tells the camera. He told me he would support me, but he needed something relevant to send his people to the city, so I made the graves. All the mass graves in Tonala, Tlake-pake, Chamoco Zapapan. Sorry, guys, I'm really butchering these names. I made them and called the authorities to make it important.

I mean, the fact that I haven't even mentioned these towns shows you how awful this is. Cholo also says he, quote, gave the order to throw the grenade into the US consulate in Guadalajara. And he finishes by saying, quote, you guys that still support me, that's the Nueva Plaza. Stop doing it and dedicate to your family. Look how I ended.

So he's doing all this obviously after being beaten and tortured probably. Is the thinking here that he's telling the truth or Mancho did some of this stuff and is making him say it? I think it's Mentiono seeing an opportunity to get him to take. I mean, like there's plausible deniability for the cops, right? Because they really don't want to sort of have an all-nought battle with Mention. So if he throws someone in front of a camera and there's at least the inkling that he might have done these things, then, you know, maybe that kind of holds off a, an all-out war for a few more days at least. And on March 18th, 2020, that's the day that the video goes viral.

A body is left on a park bench near the city hall of Talakipaki, a south-eastern suburb of Guadalajara. It's wrapped tight in black plastic, and knives are stuck into its chest and leg. Attached a sign. The traitor El Cholo, it reads. So, now, there is no no other. Placer. Mencho's biggest enemy is actually at this point the Cartelis Unidos, the United

Cartels or CU, which began as vigilantes. But nowadays, they're basically just another cartel. They're made up of former members of smaller cartels, like the Cartel de Tepak, sorry, and Los Vigras. Lately, they've been flighting over control of Michoacan. That's this vast, fertile state that some believe is Mencho's kind of homecoming. It's a way to stay put rather than constantly be on the move and a citadel from which to control his empire.

Here's an anecdote told by Van der Felba Brown from a recent trip to Michoakhan. After recent elections, several pickup trucks loaded with men armed with assault weapons pulled up next to the house of the recently elected new mayor. They entered his house and told him

that all law enforcement actions by municipal police forces would have to be cleared with the cartel and directed only against its rivals and 20% of all public spending in the municipality would have to be handed over to the cartel. Otherwise, he and his family would be killed. Although the mayor informed state authorities

in the capital of Moralia, they failed to provide him any meaningful support. No state officers were stationed in the municipality. It would take them at least, two days to get there during a violent action to investigate a particular egregious murder, if fuel happened to be available. You're juggling a lot, but you can still squeeze in a financial plan. With the Northwestern Mutual Financial Advisor as your partner, it's not only possible,

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I woke up to this blinding light, and I was transported to another place. Pluto TV! Then I heard a voice. Come with me if you want to live. There were thousands of movies and shows, and they were all free. The truth is our city.

It's just so beautiful. Pluto TV free streaming of Terminator 2, Fringe Arrow, the 100 N-EX files may cause excitement, loss of sleep and sudden belief in extraterrestrials, no credit cards or alien encounters necessary. Pluto TV, stream now, pay never. And she goes on, quote, several days later, I was told, the mayor received a message from a rival group not to obey the first cartel, not to target their criminal group, and to hand a portion of public spending to them instead. His sense, apparently, was that he could absolutely not trust the municipal police to defend him,

as he considered it to be infiltrated by at least one of the criminal groups. That's just not ideal. It's like just crazy. I mean, like I said before, it's dizzy, right? And apparently once where this whole situation was the politicians picking and choosing which cartels

would best suit their needs to cling on to power, which obviously is terrible in its own right, now it's the cartels who picked the politicians, politicians. And that's a pretty terrifying thing for the civilians caught in the crossfire, right? Thousands have been displaced and entire farms have been abandoned, leaving a lot of Michoacan looking like the world's most beautiful ghost town, basically. And there's been a particularly nasty battle going on in the Michoacan municipality of Aguilia, where Mencho is actually from. The CJNG has employed drones to send audio threats to inhabitants and sometimes even drops

bombs on them. In 2019, it tells folks to boot out the mayor in the town of Bonifacio Moreno. He's a former Alto Defensive guy called Juan Jose Farias. The message goes like this, quote, We already hear you, dogs. The pure four letters, that means the C-JNG. Sons of your whore mother, we're going to kill you all. Imagine getting that from a drone. Jesus Christ. In September 2020, Cartelis Unido. men drive a military tank through the town of Bonifacil Merrill, recording themselves, warning the C.J&G off trying to take the place. A couple months later, the CJNG storms a CU trap house.

A full-scale battle breaks out, and dozens of men are above 40 trucks, and it goes crazy. Last March, that's March 2021. Farias, the mayor, he's arrested after he broke as a multi-million dollar deal to deliver half a ton of meth hidden in concrete tiles to Florida on behalf of the CU. That prompts another flush of violence by the CJNG, and the government under Amlose doing just about nothing to change it. Says Adaglia up east, quote,

what we need is for one cartel to take control, stop the fighting, and impose some semblance of calm. Everything indicates that group is the Helisco cartel. The only road into Aguilla is blocked and controlled by a cartel that is only 500 yards away from you and you, that's the army, are not doing anything

protect our right to travel freely. You don't know how hard it is to be paying a war tax that is being used to kill us. I mean, this is really awful stuff. The murder rate is sky high. The Mexican state is becoming more and more compromised by corrupt officials, police officers.

It's getting, a lot like Colombia during the Medellin years. And I don't have the answers, but one thing's for sure. What we're doing now with this drug war, it's just flat out not working. In 2020, authorities in Mexico discovered 550 mass graves across the country, where 80,000 people have gone missing. Authorities have recovered almost 1,100 bodies, and 430 of them are in Halisco.

A security analyst says that, quote, unfortunately, the decapitated bodies and corpses hanging from bridges are part of the daily landscape of violence that is experienced in many part of the countries. So in case this gets like pitch black dark, there's one tiny slither of good news buried in all of it. And that's that last November, Mexico's military captured El Mentiono's wife, Rosalinda Gonzalez Valencia, aka La Heifer, the boss. According to Mike Vigil, that former DEA chief,

she's got, quote, all of the keys, all of the confidence of El Mentiono, all of the information, as was responsible for laundering the cartel's money. Of course, being a Balencia, she's pretty much cartel royalty herself, the niece of Cornelio, the guy who founded the Millennios.

Her marriage to El Mentiono was therefore, a bit like a medieval royal wedding in a way, sealing the alliance of powerful clans, Although given the bloodshed that's followed, I really hope they marry for love. Was that instrumental in his rise? Yeah, I mean, that sort of alliance marriage? I don't know if the alliance marriage itself was instrumental, but you would think so, right, given that he basically instrumentalized his own position in the millennials who are breaking up to sort of splinter and form the CJNG.

And last month, that's like December, 20, That saw even more violence in Michoacan. This time we see JNG gunmen blowing up buildings with C4 explosives. According to Mexico News Daily, quote, security footage shows gunmen shooting at homes and kicking down doors. Residents said gang members entered homes and beat the inhabitants. But no deaths or serious injuries have been reported. Okay.

So, quote again, if the Mexican army made a concerted effort, I'm sure they could find El Mancho and they could rub him out, said Insight Crimes Chris Dalby. But, he adds, it would make no difference. It will perhaps weaken the Helisco cartel

and fragment them, but it would not make Mexico any safer because someone else would just take over. This whole thing is whack a mole, right? Except every time you whack a mole, like this fucking bigger, even shittier mole comes out of the next hole. And right now, El Mention is the worst

more we've ever had to deal with. Do we get the world we deserve? Is there a lighter note to end this on? I don't know. But that is El Mancho, guys. Yeah, wow. What, uh, getting a philosophical. Philosophical?

Philosophy at the end of it. Yeah, I don't know. But the stressing stuff. Yeah, it's terrible. It's terrible. But, uh, I hope that kind of clears up some stuff. Because like, it really is a bit of a black hole of information about this guy. So it was interesting seeing how much shit there is that's written.

and it's completely untrue. Yeah, and people always ask for the cartel stuff. But also, if you want more, patreon.com slash the end of the world podcast. Keegan Hamilton, I think, gives us some insight that he's got from the ground over there, yeah? Yeah, yeah.

People can see his doco on YouTube and whatever, and we had a really good chat about some of his experiences out there because it's like, it's so fractures. Like, these cartels who need us, they're just, I mean, it's the ultimate expression of, like, giving vigilantes power and then watching them just try and take over themselves.

So that's a really interesting interview that I did. And yeah, we've got those coming out every week, so sign up to the Patreon. Yeah, I want to thank our higher tier members for supporting us, John Simon, Patrick Rowland, Tanner McLeve, Sam Ramsey, Juan Ponce, T. Thomas, Mike O'Rich, William Wintercross, train ants, Matthew Cutler, Ross Clark, Jeremy Rich, and Doug Prentonneville. Thank you guys a ton. You make this worthwhile. I want to send a special shout out to my dog. who's been sitting by my side and made no sounds

throughout this entire record. So, yeah, thanks to the... Class-Oct all around and a good boy. But anyway, thanks again. Until next week. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Whether it's the funds fueling AI

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