Who was El Mencho? What drug lord’s killing means for Mexico

EXPLAINER News | Drugs Who was El Mencho? What drug lord’s killing means for Mexico US-backed operation that killed El Mencho sparks a wave of violence across the country. Listen to this article | 9 mins Video Duration 02 minutes 00 seconds 02:00 Mexico's most powerful drug boss ‘El Mencho’ killed, sparking cartel violence nationwide By Sarah Shamim Published On 23 Feb 2026 23 Feb 2026 Click here to share on social media Share Save In a military raid supported by the United States, Mexican forces have located and killed one of the country’s most wanted drug lords, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as “El Mencho” . In the immediate aftermath of his killing on Sunday, violence erupted in numerous areas of Mexico as gunmen set vehicles ablaze and erected roadblocks across 20 states. We break down who El Mencho was, how he was killed and what his death means for the US and Mexico. Who was El Mencho? He was the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which operates from the western state of Jalisco and is known for its large military-style arsenal. Aged 59 when he was killed, El Mencho was from the neighbouring state of Michoacan. It is rumoured that he was a police officer before he became a drug lord. He rose in the ranks of Mexico’s drug-trafficking underworld in the 1990s. In 1994, he was convicted in the US of heroin trafficking and served nearly three years in prison before returning to Mexico. There are plenty of stories about El Mencho’s outrageous methods of making threats and dealing with adversaries. He once reportedly sent a severed pig’s head in an ice chest to a Mexican attorney as a threat, Rolling Stone magazine reported in 2015, citing an unnamed former DEA field agent. A call recording captured him threatening a local police commander with the call sign “Delta One”, promising to kill him “and even your dogs” if his officers didn’t back off, then ending with a nonchalant “Sorry for the bad language”. Advertisement As El Mencho rose to become s ...