US and Mexican officials acknowledged intelligence-sharing bolstered an operation in which cartel kingpin El Mencho was fatally injured
US intelligence agencies provided crucial information for the Mexican operation that led to the death of one of the country’s most powerful drug lords, multiple media outlets have reported.
Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as El Mencho, died from his injuries after being targeted on Sunday in Tapalpa in the western state of Jalisco, Mexico’s Defense Ministry said. The cartel responded with reprisal violence across the nation.
Mexican officials said the US provided “complementary” information for the operation against the longtime head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), a major trafficker of fentanyl, cocaine, and methamphetamines into the US market. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged US intelligence involvement in an X post reporting that “a top target” for both governments had been “eliminated.”
Mexican Defense Secretary Ricardo Trevilla Trejo said military intelligence located Cervantes by tracking an associate of his romantic partner. US sources cited by Reuters, the New York Times, and other outlets said information provided by the CIA through the Pentagon-led Joint Interagency Task Force Counter Cartel (JITF-CC) was “instrumental.” JITF-CC, launched last month, reportedly applies US counterinsurgency experience from the Middle East to fighting cartels.
The reports did not specify how the intelligence was obtained. Sources credited CIA Director John Ratcliffe for expanding an anti-cartel program established under President Joe Biden to include recruiting informants on the ground. A former US official told Reuters that the Mexican government received a “detailed target package for El Mencho.”
US President Donald Trump has pressured Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to intensify her crackdown on drug trafficking, threatening possible direct US intervention on Mexican soil.
CJNG members retaliated for their leader’s death, engaging in gunfights with security forces in Jalisco, Michoacan, Tamaulipas, Zacatecas, Colima, and Oaxaca. Operations at airports in Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara were disrupted by the threat of violence.
The cartel, founded in 2009, is reputed to be one of Mexico’s wealthiest and most violent. It is known to fund its own well-equipped special operations forces, whose members reportedly gained drone warfare experience fighting for Kiev in the Ukraine conflict.
