25 Mexican National Guard troops left dead during an operation that killed cartel leader ‘El Mencho’

Twen­ty-five mem­bers of the Mex­i­can Na­tion­al Guard were left dead in six sep­a­rate at­tacks af­ter spe­cial forces killed the no­to­ri­ous leader of the­Jalis­co New Gen­er­a­tion Car­tel, the coun­try’s se­cu­ri­ty sec­re­tary said Mon­day as much of Mex­i­co feared more vi­o­lence.

Neme­sio Os­eguera Cer­vantes, known as “El Men­cho,” was the boss of one of the fastest-grow­ing crim­i­nal net­works in Mex­i­co, known for traf­fick­ing fen­tanyl, metham­phet­a­mine and co­caine to the Unit­ed States and stag­ing brazen at­tacks against gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials who chal­lenged the car­tel.

He was killed af­ter a shootout in his home state of Jalis­co as the Mex­i­can mil­i­tary at­tempt­ed to cap­ture him. Car­tel mem­bers re­spond­ed with wide­spread vi­o­lence, block­ing roads and set­ting fire to ve­hi­cles.

Mex­i­can De­fense Sec­re­tary Ri­car­do Tre­vil­la said Mon­day that au­thor­i­ties had fol­lowed one of Os­eguera Cer­vantes’ ro­man­tic part­ners to his hide­out in Tapal­pa, Jalis­co.

Army and Na­tion­al Guard spe­cial forces moved in Sun­day morn­ing and im­me­di­ate­ly came un­der heavy fire. Eight gun­men were killed there. Os­eguera Cer­vantes and two body­guards fled in­to a wood­ed area where they were se­ri­ous­ly wound­ed in a fire­fight, Tre­vil­la said. They were flown out along with a wound­ed sol­dier, but El Men­cho and his body­guards died en route to Mex­i­co City, he said.

In a dif­fer­ent lo­ca­tion in Jalis­co, sol­diers al­so killed an­oth­er high-rank­ing car­tel mem­ber who Tre­vil­la said was co­or­di­nat­ing vi­o­lence and of­fer­ing more than $1,000 for every sol­dier killed.

Al­so killed Sun­day were a prison guard, an agent from the state pros­e­cu­tor’s of­fice and a woman who was not iden­ti­fied by au­thor­i­ties. Se­cu­ri­ty Sec­re­tary Omar Gar­cía Har­fuch said some 30 crim­i­nal sus­pects were killed in Jalis­co and four oth­ers were killed in the neigh­bor­ing state of Mi­choa­can.

Sev­er­al Mex­i­can states can­celed school Mon­day, and lo­cal and for­eign gov­ern­ments warned their cit­i­zens to stay in­side af­ter wide­spread vi­o­lence erupt­ed.

Pres­i­dent Clau­dia Shein­baum urged calm, and au­thor­i­ties said all of the more than 250 car­tel road­blocks across 20 states had been cleared by Mon­day.

The White House con­firmed that the U.S. pro­vid­ed in­tel­li­gence sup­port to the op­er­a­tion to cap­ture the car­tel leader and ap­plaud­ed Mex­i­co’s army for tak­ing down a man who was one of the most want­ed crim­i­nals in both coun­tries.

Mex­i­co hoped the death of the world’s biggest fen­tanyl traf­fick­ers would ease Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion pres­sure to do more against the car­tels, but many peo­ple were on edge as they wait­ed to see the pow­er­ful car­tel’s re­ac­tion.

Many fear more vi­o­lence

The U.S. Em­bassy said via X that its per­son­nel in eight cities and in Mi­choa­can would shel­ter in place and work re­mote­ly Mon­day, and it warned U.S. cit­i­zens in many parts of Mex­i­co to do the same.

Cars be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing in Guadala­jara be­fore sun­rise Mon­day with the start of the work­week, a no­table change from Sun­day, when Jalis­co’s state cap­i­tal and Mex­i­co’s sec­ond-largest city was al­most com­plete­ly shut down as fear­ful res­i­dents stayed home.

More than 1,000 peo­ple were stuck overnight in Guadala­jara’s zoo, where they slept in bus­es. On Mon­day morn­ing. moth­ers wrapped in blan­kets car­ried their tod­dlers out of the bus­es for a much-need­ed bath­room break as po­lice trucks guard­ed the area.

Luis So­to Rendón, the zoo’s di­rec­tor, said many had been trapped there since 9 a.m. Sun­day, when vi­o­lence broke out in Jalis­co and the sur­round­ing states. Fam­i­lies were left strand­ed af­ter con­clud­ing they could not re­turn home in near­by states like Za­cate­cas and Mi­choa­can.

“We de­cid­ed to let peo­ple stay in­side the zoo for their safe­ty,” So­to said. “There are small chil­dren and se­nior cit­i­zens.”

José Luis Ramírez, a 54-year-old ther­a­pist, was in a long line of peo­ple wait­ing out­side a phar­ma­cy, one of the few busi­ness­es that were open Mon­day in Guadala­jara. Fam­i­lies were buy­ing food, med­i­cine, wa­ter, di­a­pers and ba­by for­mu­la, from phar­ma­cists through a chained door.

It was Ramírez’s first time leav­ing the house since vi­o­lence erupt­ed over the week­end, but he struck a hope­ful tone say­ing that de­spite the blood­shed, civil­ians need­ed to move for­ward.

“We have to not think scared, but be cool-head­ed, like they say, and take things as they come,” he said.

Traf­fic was light in the city, and out­ward­ly it ap­peared that those who could af­ford to stay home were do­ing so, while those who had to work were care­ful­ly mak­ing their way across the city.

Ir­ma Hernán­dez, a 43-year-old ho­tel se­cu­ri­ty guard in Guadala­jara, ar­rived at work ear­ly Mon­day.

She nor­mal­ly takes pub­lic trans­porta­tion to work, but bus­es were not run­ning, and she had no way to cross the city. Her boss­es or­ga­nized a pri­vate car to pick her up. Her fam­i­ly, she said, was stay­ing at home, too scared to leave.

“I am wor­ried be­cause I don’t know how to get home if some­thing hap­pens,” she said.

Videos cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia Sun­day showed tourists in Puer­to Val­lar­ta walk­ing on the beach with smoke ris­ing in the dis­tance.

A blow against a car­tel could be a diplo­mat­ic coup

David Mo­ra, Mex­i­co an­a­lyst for the In­ter­na­tion­al Cri­sis Group, said the out­burst of vi­o­lence marks a point of in­flec­tion in Shein­baum’s push to crack down on car­tels and re­lieve U.S. pres­sures.

U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has de­mand­ed Mex­i­co do more to fight the smug­gling of fen­tanyl, threat­en­ing to im­pose more tar­iffs or take uni­lat­er­al mil­i­tary ac­tion if the coun­try does not show re­sults.

There were ear­ly signs that Mex­i­co’s ef­forts were well re­ceived by the Unit­ed States.

U.S. Am­bas­sador Ron John­son rec­og­nized the suc­cess of the Mex­i­can armed forces and their sac­ri­fice in a state­ment late Sun­day. Un­der the lead­er­ship of Trump and Shein­baum, he said, “bi­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion has reached un­prece­dent­ed lev­els.”

But it may al­so pave the way for more vi­o­lence as ri­val crim­i­nal groups take ad­van­tage of the blow dealt to the CJNG, Mo­ra said.

“This might be a mo­ment in which those oth­er groups see that the car­tel is weak­ened and want to seize the op­por­tu­ni­ty for them to ex­pand con­trol and to gain con­trol over Car­tel Jalis­co in those states,” he said.

“Ever since Pres­i­dent Shein­baum has been in pow­er, the army has been way more con­fronta­tion­al, com­bat­ive against crim­i­nal groups in Mex­i­co,” Mo­ra said. “This is sig­nal­ing to the U.S. that if we keep co­op­er­at­ing, shar­ing in­tel­li­gence, Mex­i­co can do it. We don’t need U.S. troops on Mex­i­can soil.”

‘El Men­cho’ was a ma­jor tar­get

White House press sec­re­tary Karo­line Leav­itt said via X that the U.S. gov­ern­ment pro­vid­ed in­tel­li­gence sup­port for the op­er­a­tion.

“‘El Men­cho’ was a top tar­get for the Mex­i­can and Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment as one of the top traf­fick­ers of fen­tanyl in­to our home­land,” she wrote. She com­mend­ed Mex­i­co’s mil­i­tary for its work.

The U.S. State De­part­ment had of­fered a re­ward of up to $15 mil­lion for in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to the ar­rest of El Men­cho. The Jalis­co New Gen­er­a­tion Car­tel is one of the most pow­er­ful crim­i­nal or­ga­ni­za­tions in Mex­i­co and be­gan op­er­at­ing around 2009.

In Feb­ru­ary 2025, the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion des­ig­nat­ed the car­tel as a for­eign ter­ror­ist or­ga­ni­za­tion.

Shein­baum has crit­i­cized the “king­pin” strat­e­gy of pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tions that took out car­tel lead­ers, on­ly to trig­ger ex­plo­sions of vi­o­lence as car­tels frac­tured.

The Jalis­co car­tel has been one of the most ag­gres­sive car­tels in its at­tacks on the mil­i­tary — in­clud­ing on he­li­copters — and is a pi­o­neer in launch­ing ex­plo­sives from drones and in­stalling mines. In 2020, it car­ried out a spec­tac­u­lar as­sas­si­na­tion at­tempt with grenades and high-pow­ered ri­fles in the heart of Mex­i­co City against the then-head of the cap­i­tal’s po­lice force and now fed­er­al se­cu­ri­ty sec­re­tary.