Drug lord touted as 'new El Chapo' mercilessly slaughters pregnant women and children to become Mexico's narco kingpin
While Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, the infamous leader and kingpin of the Sinaloa Cartel, is currently serving life at ADX Florence, the drug wars are raging as fervently as ever in Mexico, with a drug lord touted as the new El Chapo trying to wrest control of the lucrative, illicit trade.
Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, better known as 'El Mencho,' was once a disciple of Guzmán and is now the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), a criminal group based in Jalisco, and is now America's new "most wanted" man, with a bounty of $10 million placed on his head.
The massive bounty is, in part, because of the trail of bodies Cervantes has left behind in his bid to win the drug war and become Mexico's biggest kingpin, including not just rival gang members, but also women and children.
"They [the CJNG] are very violent," explained specialist DEA agent Kyle Mori to Latin American news channel Univision. "Decapitations, dissolving bodies in acid, public executions, ripping out the heart, killing women and children, bombings against people. It happens almost every day. El Chapo was violent, but El Mencho has taken it to a new level."
Its the DEA's belief that the CJNG is now Mexico's largest criminal organization and has at least equaled the U.S. distribution networks of the Sinaloa Cartel. The agency's intelligence reports also suggest Cervantes has created his own 'Golden Triangle,' a region fertile for the cultivation of poppies and marijuana, which covers parts of Chihuahua, Durango, and Sinaloa.
Furthermore, the US Department of Justice revealed that he had used bribes, as well as violence, to expand his cartel to 23 of Mexico's 32 states and many US cities, including Los Angeles, San Diego, El Paso, Laredo, Houston, Dallas, Miami, Orlando, New York, Denver, Atlanta, and Chicago.
The CJNG is believed to have as many as 5,000 members, most of whom are very violent and have no qualms about who they kill.
Just last month, Mexican officials made a gruesome discovery when they uncovered the bodies of 44 missing people, many of who were women, in a buried well in Jalisco state, where the CJNG is based. The remains were found stuffed in 119 black bags.
There have been 88 women murdered in Mexico since August alone, according to the Sun, more than half of which took place in areas where the CJNG has a strong presence. For the year, that figure is 638 women murdered, most of whom were again killed in areas controlled or influenced by Cervantes' organization.
The figures make for a distressing reading, with politician Guadalupe Almaguer tweeting that "the violence against women is on a pandemic level."
Mori said catching Cervantes was now the US's number one priority. "It's something I do every day, Saturdays, Sundays, 365 days a year because he's very violent, very powerful," he said. "We owe it to the citizens of the United States to get rid of these leading narco traffickers who put so much poison on our streets, and our southern neighbors."