MEXICO CITY — The U.S. State Department has revoked the visas of musicians in a popular Mexican band after the group flashed big-screen images of the notorious Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as El Mencho, reputed leader of the powerful Jalisco New Generation cartel.
The band, Los Alegres del Barranco, projected a likeness of the secretive capo during a concert Saturday at the Telmex Auditorium in Zapopan, a suburb of Guadalajara, triggering protests.
The group “portrayed images glorifying drug kingpin ‘El Mencho’ — head of the grotesquely violent CJNG cartel,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, wrote Tuesday on X.
As a result, the State Department revoked the work and tourist visas of band members, wrote Landau, who served as ambassador to Mexico during part of President Trump’s first term.
“I’m a firm believer in freedom of expression, but that doesn’t mean that expression should be free of consequences,” Landau wrote. “In the Trump Administration, we take seriously our responsibility over foreigners’ access to our country. The last thing we need is a welcome mat for people who extol criminals and terrorists.”
The Trump administration has designated six Mexican cartels, including the Jalisco gang, as foreign terrorist organizations.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has offered a $15-million reward for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of El Mencho.
The photo of a young El Mencho that flashed on the screen is among the only public images of the reputed kingpin, who is believed to be 58.
He began his career as a small-time drug dealer in California. El Mencho went to prison after his 1992 arrest for selling heroin to an undercover police officer in San Francisco.
After his release from a U.S. prison, he returned to Mexico, reportedly became a police officer and mob hit man, and worked his way up to become a founder of the Jalisco New Generation cartel.
His son, Rubén Oseguera Gonzalez, known as El Menchito — reportedly the cartel’s former second in command to his father — was sentenced to life in a U.S. prison last month after his drug-trafficking conviction in federal district court.
Even before Washington moved to cancel the musicians’ visas, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum had called for an investigation into the incident in which El Mencho’s image was projected.
Mexican authorities have been trying to discourage positive depictions of drug traffickers, whose exploits are often lionized by bands reciting popular corridos, or ballads, exalting the criminal life. Officials view such characterizations as de facto advertisements for Mexican organized crime groups, which are among the nation’s largest employers.
The concert at which the image of El Mencho appeared came a few weeks after a scandal over the discovery of a former cartel training camp in the countryside about 35 miles outside Guadalajara. Human rights activists say many cartel recruits may have been killed at the site, where searchers found hundreds of shoes and articles of clothing, along with charred bones.
Mexican authorities have rejected the notion that the site was an “extermination camp,” labeling it a training facility.
The camp, authorities said, was one of a number of training grounds for El Mencho’s Jalisco New Generation cartel, which is among Mexico’s largest — and most violent — criminal groups. The cartel has a presence in the United States and beyond.
Los Alegres del Barranco, with origins the western state of Sinaloa, is a popular band both in Mexico and among immigrant communities in the United States. The band was about to embark on a U.S. tour, with performances scheduled in Oklahoma, Texas, Tennessee, Alabama and California.
After announcement of the visa cancellation, Pável Moreno, the band’s accordion player and second vocalist, said in a TikTok video that the group was “moving forward,” and thanked the group’s fans.
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