Mexican forces killed the country’s most powerful drug boss amid pressure from President Donald Trump to curb the flow of narcotics to the U.S.
Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, or “El Mencho,” the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, was killed in an operation at the cartel’s base in Tapalpa, Mexico’s Secretariat of National Defense announced Sunday, adding that it received complementary information from U.S. authorities.
American authorities had put up a reward of up to $15 million for information about Oseguera, 59, who had been indicted several times in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, most recently for conspiracy and distribution of controlled substances for unlawful importation into the U.S.
“This is a great development for Mexico, the US, Latin America, and the world,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said in a post on X. “The good guys are stronger than the bad guys.”
The operation swiftly triggered violence across Mexico, with drug cartels blocking the roads and burning vehicles in at least five states, including Jalisco. The chaos prompted the State Department to issue a security alert on Sunday, warning Americans to shelter in place until further notice.
“I’m watching the scenes of violence from Mexico with great sadness and concern. It’s not surprising that the bad guys are responding with terror. But we must never lose our nerve,” Landau said.
Trump, 79, has repeatedly threatened to strike Mexico as part of his global drug crackdown.
“Would I launch strikes in Mexico to stop drugs? OK with me, whatever we have to do to stop drugs,” he told reporters at the Oval Office in November. “There’s some big problems over there.”
“We’ve stopped the waterways, but we know every route. We know every route, we know the addresses of every drug lord,” he continued. “We know their address, we know their front door. We know everything about every one of them. They’re killing our people. That’s like a war. Would I do it? I’d be proud to.”
Trump doubled down on those threats in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity last month.
“We’ve knocked out 97 percent of the drugs coming in by water, and we are going to start now hitting land. With regard to the cartels, the cartels are running Mexico. It’s very, very sad to watch and see what’s happened to that country,” he said.
When asked by CNBC for clarification about those remarks, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Trump had “many options at his disposal to continue to protect our homeland from illicit narcotics that kill tens of thousands of Americans every year.”
But Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has remained defiant, categorically rejecting “intervention in the internal matters of other countries” after U.S. forces seized Venezuelan autocrat Nicolás Maduro at the start of the year.
“It is necessary to reaffirm that in Mexico the people rule, and that we are a free and sovereign country—cooperation, yes; subordination and intervention, no,” she said.
The post Mexico’s Most Wanted Drug Boss Dead After Trump Threats appeared first on The Daily Beast.
