Forget El Chapo - Meet El Mencho

[grzegorz]

Yahoo News

Forget El Chapo — Meet El Mencho and His Bloodthirsty Cartel
Ozy News By Meghan Walsh Jul 19, 2015 4:00 AM
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On a warm day in May, members of a blossoming Mexican narco syndicate went on the attack. They blocked more than 30 roads with smoldering tankers, boxing in the city of Guadalajara. In broad daylight, they lit ATMs and banks on fire. When the military came after them, cartel members shot down a helicopter with RPGs and then executed the soldiers inside. It was a brazen and terrifying display of power. “There was panic. No one knew what was going to happen next,” says Pedro Guerrero Haro, a forensics investigator who ended up sorting through the mess.

As authorities across North America embark on an epic manhunt for Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the kingpin better known as El Chapo, experts say an even more dangerous figure is on the loose — one who hasn’t been arrested but who is believed to have orchestrated the bloody siege in Guadalajara. His name is Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes — or just El Mencho. Over the past few years, he’s risen to commanding heights in the landscape of Mexican narcotrafficking, rivaling the power El Chapo once had. The cartel he leads has chosen to seize power by any means necessary — including, apparently, rocket launchers. “He’s the top crime boss right now in Mexico,” according to Tristan Reed, a Mexican security analyst for the global intelligence firm Stratfor.

It takes a certain brilliance to map your way in today’s drug wars, in which erratic and ever-shifting narco networks battle it out in ever more brutal fashion. While the federales have had mixed success in recent years picking off the jefes — the catch-and-release saga of El Chapo is a case in point — even their victories have a downside, in that each one basically creates a power vacuum. A gaggle of smaller cartels are fighting to fill it, wreaking havoc on Mexico’s streets as they compete for market share. The stakes have only grown as the drug supply chain has extended from the U.S. to China to Europe.
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All this chaos and change has given El Mencho his chance: He’s shown a foxlike dexterity for adapting to circumstance, whether it’s switching allegiances or moving to meth from heroin — all while going unseen. Indeed, while he hasn’t gotten much press outside Mexico, El Mencho and his Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación have expanded territory from coast to coast, becoming the most global of all the Mexican suppliers. “He’s different from some who might want to be feared but aren’t trying to build a territorial dynasty,” says Everard Meade, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego. A businessman with a military mindset, El Mencho has focused on tightening and lengthening his supply chain, and demolishing competitors or anyone else who might get in the way.

Nearly as much lore as substance, the kingpin is rumored to be a former police officer originally from Aguililla city or Uruapan, both in Michoacán. The United States Treasury Department, which froze his assets in April, says El Mencho did time in U.S. prison for conspiracy to distribute heroin. Otherwise, he’s managed to evade the authorities, unlike his 24-year-old son, El Menchito, who’s been arrested three times now. Yet even those who’ve studied El Mencho closely can’t agree on his first name; some say it’s Nemesio, others Ruben. The law enforcement background would make sense, though, experts say, given his precise tactics and willingness to wage war against the government. Which, by the way, he seems to be winning.

About 60,000 people were murdered in Mexico between 2006 and 2012, according to Human Rights Watch.
The Mexican drug trade has long existed, of course, but the past 15 years have seen a deadly shift in the balance of power. When Mexico had a one-party political system, the government could more easily set the terms with cartels, Meade says. Typically, the exchange went like this: The government promised to leave cartels alone so long as its agents got their cut. But in 2000, the political system opened up to multiple parties, giving cartels more leverage. Instead of the government taxing the drug runners, it’s now the other way around: “The cartels set the terms,” says Meade. And their use of violence has shifted too. Murder is no longer a way of shielding the black market from public view; it’s become a tool “to terrify local governments and people into submission,” Meade says. According to numbers from Human Rights Watch, about 60,000 people were murdered in Mexico between 2006 and 2012, a death toll El Mencho is only accelerating.

Not long before the helicopter incident, his men assassinated 15 Jalisco police officers, according to Mexican authorities. A YouTube search produces gruesome videos of killing and torture that CJNG takes credit for. One, which was recently taken down, showed a father and his teenage son wrapped in explosives; they detonate the kid first so dad can watch. When businesses don’t pay their “taxes,” it’s a grenade through the front door, residents of Guadalajara say. Yet nothing compares to when El Mencho’s CJNG allegedly killed 35 members of Los Zetas, a rival gang, several years ago. Before killing their victims, cartel members tortured them, cutting off ears and limbs. The victims’ mutilated bodies were dumped on the highway at rush hour, news reports said.

As the past few years have shown, fighting the cartels is a deadly game of whack-a-mole. Take down El Chapo’s Sinaloa cartel and a new, more heinous monster rises in its place. Indeed, El Mencho has seemed to learn from the mistakes of his high-profile predecessor, remaining a shadow in an already dark underworld. And as the authorities renew their chase of El Chapo, El Mencho will likely recede further — and flourish. Turns out, says Reed, “El Chapo’s escape may have bought El Mencho some more time to remain at-large.”

http://news.yahoo.com/forget-el-chapo-m ... 00149.html

[Andy_S]

Cities being taken over? Gangstas bringing down army helos? The butchered body parts of multiple murder victims being dumped in bloody heaps on highways?

Fuck me cross-eyed; I am going to Mexico in December. Thank god I know Tai Chee!

But before I travel, can anyone recommend:
A good life insurer; and
A reputable retailer of stylish, but highly absorbent, brown trousers?

[Bao]

Mexico City is just as a safe place as any metropol in the world. Just don't enter Cartel Land, and there should be no probs.

[grzegorz]

Talking with my friends from Mexico they basically say everyone they know minds their own business and stays out trouble. Basically like living in a rough neighborhood, staying out of trouble at all costs is the key. The problem is you never know who is a ganster because unlike the US, down there, they try to blend into society. Keep in mind the cops aren't paid much.

I would still down there but I wish I had done more travelling down there twenty years ago when things were different.

[Andy_S]

Bao:

Cheers for the advice, my mind is now at rest. FYI, my hotel is the
The "El Mencho" Novotel Central,
Kalashnikov Avenue,
Cartel Land,
Mexico City
762-666

Oh. Shit.

Can anyone recommend a good trouser launderer?

[Ian C. Kuzushi]

Hmm, according to two of my close friends from Mexico City, it is absolutely *not safe.* Especially if you are white and look wealthy. Kidnappings galore. There is a whole trade of it specifically in that city. There are narcos everywhere now, too.

I have some friends from other areas of Mexico, and two of them went there after graduating from Cal with honors to start a new life. They said things had changed so much in five years, that they came back out of fear. The vibe in the countryside as well as the cities is horrible now, even among the locals.

I went to the Yucatan a few years ago with my sweetie. I got home and found out about a resort, not unlike the one we were staying at, that had been taken over by a narco gang who then gang raped a bunch of the female tourists. That would have sucked.

I'm not saying don't go, but be very aware. It's probably not as bad as when I was in north and east Africa in 98, but it's dangerous. Certainly more dangerous than many cities I can name (Bao, have you ever been to Tokyo or Seoul? Comparing them to MC is pretty silly. Or to pretty much any other city I have lived in).

[Ian C. Kuzushi]

Also, isn't Troy a bodyguard there, now? If he has guns, maybe you could look him up?

[Bao]

Hmm, according to two of my close friends from Mexico City, it is absolutely *not safe.* Especially if you are white and look wealthy. Kidnappings galore. ... Certainly more dangerous than many cities I can name (Bao, have you ever been to Tokyo or Seoul? Comparing them to MC is pretty silly. Or to pretty much any other city I have lived in).

My cousin lived in Mexico City for 30 years, mostly by herself. She ... eh ... looks Scandinavian.

Like any other big city it depends on where you live. There are places in NY, Paris and Stockholm as well where I wouldn't wanna live. Seoul isn't a totally happy city with all wealthy people as well. For Mexico City, it's a really giant place. So yes, it's not comparable with almost any other city. But to call it an all dangerous place is just silly. I could say that about Johannesburg, but MC is not in that league.

[Steve James]

It always depends on when and where you are. I think that Mexico has gotten progressively more dangerous in the last decade. However, Mexico City, in fact, doesn't even make the list of world's most dangerous cities, while Detroit and New Orleans are up there on the list. Otoh, Acapulco and Tijuana make the list and are probably good places to avoid.

The gov put out a warning for travelers,... http://travel.state.gov/content/passpor ... rning.html
Most of the advice makes sense, but would make sense anywhere.

Now, afa the narco problem, Mexico could solve it by simply legalizing drugs. The "war on drugs" kills Mexicans who don't even use drugs, and enriches those who control the supply.

Found this http://www.businessinsider.com/the-50-m ... 015-1?op=1

[Finny]

Now, afa the narco problem, Mexico could solve it by simply legalizing drugs. The "war on drugs" kills Mexicans who don't even use drugs,
1

Yeah - I wonder why they don't just do that? Oh that's right.. there is another, somewhat influential country nearby which coined the term "war on drugs"....

[Bao]

Now, afa the narco problem, Mexico could solve it by simply legalizing drugs. The "war on drugs" kills Mexicans who don't even use drugs,
1

Yeah - I wonder why they don't just do that? Oh that's right.. there is another, somewhat influential country nearby which coined the term "war on drugs"....

Maybe corruption as usual. People high up who earn money on a terrible situation where people dies and don't want to lose their blood money. In the US, I believe this kind of corruption is legal and called "lobbying".

OTOH, it could be smart people out there who would want to do anything to fight drugs, because they have seen what drugs do and how it destroy people.

[Steve James]

OTOH, it could be smart people out there who would want to do anything to fight drugs, because they have seen what drugs do and how it destroy people.

D'ya mean the smart people whose actions have allowed 60-100K Mexicans killed? Anyway, that's been the result. It's true that heroin and meth are destroying people in the US, but the demand steadily increased after the war on drugs began. And, the drugs aren't destroying Mexicans or Central Americans; it's the competition for the American market demand that creates cartels and their violence.

US companies produce weapons and equipment that are bought by the US govt with taxpayer money and are then given, with cash, to the Mexicans to fight the cartels who are supplying the drugs used by US citizens (who are often working for those same companies). And, if they aren't using, they're drinking, which people also tried to prohibit --and wage war against-- with disastrous results.

[Andy_S]

I was in Santiago de Queratarro in Central Mex last year and it was charming - but then, it is known as Mexico's safest city.

The big town should be interesting. I am only half a target - yes, i am white, but no, I am not wealthy. Perhaps I should wear my most ragged clothes?

[Bao]

D'ya mean the smart people whose actions have allowed 60-100K Mexicans killed? Anyway, that's been the result. It's true that heroin and meth are destroying people in the US, but the demand steadily increased after the war on drugs began.

So if the drugs were legal, no violence? Think about the diamond cartels and what's happened in Africa and in other places. Diamonds are legal.

[Ian C. Kuzushi]

Perhaps it would be better to look at other countries that had huge drug problems and solved them through legalization: Portugal.