The death of Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, the co-founder and longtime head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, is reshaping how authorities and analysts view the cartel’s footprint across Mexico — including in the Yucatán Peninsula, where intelligence documents and federal arrests confirm a sustained presence.
Oseguera Cervantes, 59, was wounded during a military operation in Tapalpa, Jalisco, and died while being flown to Mexico City. The operation was carried out with U.S. intelligence support and set off a wave of cartel roadblocks and vehicle fires across more than 20 states.
The CJNG, sometimes called the “cartel of four letters,” has operated on the Yucatán Peninsula for years, confirmed in both Mexican military intelligence leaked by the hacktivist group Guacamaya in 2022 and the DEA’s National Drug Threat Assessment 2025. The DEA report places the cartel in all 32 Mexican states and 40 countries, attributing its expansion in part to alliances with corrupt officials.
The peninsula’s geography explains much of the cartel’s interest. Intelligence documents describe Yucatán, Campeche and Quintana Roo as a strategic corridor for trafficking narcotics and people from Central America, South America and the Caribbean toward the United States. The cartel also exploits the region’s tourism economy, where extortion, money laundering through luxury real estate and retail drug sales are the most profitable criminal activities.
Yucatán’s Quiet Role
Yucatán itself has remained Mexico’s most peaceful state by homicide rates, but federal authorities have documented its use as a base of operations and a refuge for cartel leaders. In August 2024, authorities arrested Aldrin Miguel Jarquín Jarquín, alias “El Chaparrito,” in a residential neighborhood in northern Mérida. He was identified as a CJNG plaza boss from Colima with close ties to El Mencho, and had reportedly set himself up as a local businessman. The U.S. Treasury’s OFAC had designated him a foreign cartel leader since 2021 for fentanyl trafficking.
Before that, leaked Sedena files identified a CJNG operator known as “Enzo” or “Chino” as running illegal hardwood exports out of Progreso and Mérida — fine timber extracted in Campeche and shipped to China. The documents also raised the possibility that the network was importing chemical precursors for synthetic drugs. A 2020 case saw U.S. anti-drug officials track a cocaine-laden aircraft from South America that landed in Yucatán carrying 750 kilograms.
In 2025, narco banners attributed to criminal organizations appeared in the Yucatán coastal town of El Cuyo, a rare but telling sign of encroachment along the Yucatán-Quintana Roo border zone.
Quintana Roo: The Hot Zone
The cartel’s activity is far more overt in Quintana Roo. Federal forces arrested a series of CJNG operatives there in the final months of 2025. In December, they took down Miguel Alexander “N,” alias “Dumbo,” identified as the Cozumel cell leader, along with three associates. That same month, Emilio Alejandro “N,” alias “El Danone,” was captured with 300,000 pesos in cash, weapons and drugs. In November, Marcos Josué “N” was arrested as the cartel’s logistics chief for distributing weapons across Benito Juárez, Puerto Morelos, Kantunilkín and Isla Mujeres. Also that month, Ernesto Guadalupe “N,” alias “El Rayo,” was linked to at least five killings and disappearances in Playa del Carmen and Tulum.
The DEA rates CJNG’s presence in Quintana Roo as “significant,” with the cartel competing against the Gulf Cartel, the Caborca Cartel and the Pacific Cartel for control of tourist-area criminal markets.
Campeche
The DEA also rates the CJNG’s presence in Campeche as “significant.” Public arrests there have been less frequent, but in August 2025, authorities detained 10 people in Champotón, including a woman known as “Lady Drones” and José Roberto Sánchez Cortés, alias “El 80,” who were found with gold-plated weapons bearing the CJNG insignia.
What Follows El Mencho’s Death
Analysts warn that removing a cartel leader does not dismantle the organization. Chris Dalby, senior analyst at Dyami Security Intelligence, has noted that the flow of drugs will continue regardless, and that regional commanders with money, power, and armed forces of their own are well positioned to splinter off or compete for control. Succession is far from clear: El Mencho’s son is jailed in the United States, and no obvious heir has emerged.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has previously expressed skepticism about the kingpin strategy, warning that removing cartel leaders can fracture organizations and ignite new cycles of violence. She has nonetheless come under mounting pressure from the Trump administration to show concrete results against cartel operations. For the Yucatán Peninsula, the immediate question is whether the cartel’s regional cells — accustomed to operating with relative autonomy — will stay disciplined or use the leadership vacuum to expand their turf.
About the CJNG
- The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación) was co-founded around 2009 by Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, “El Mencho”
- El Mencho was killed by Mexican military forces on Feb. 22, 2026, in Tapalpa, Jalisco, with U.S. intelligence support
- The cartel was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department in February 2025
- Its financial arm, Los Cuinis, is headed by family members of El Mencho’s former wife, Rosalinda González, “La Jefa” (The Boss)
- The DEA places the CJNG in all 32 Mexican states and 40 countries
- Key Peninsula arrests in 2024–2025 include: “El Chaparrito” (Mérida), “Lady Drones” and “El 80” (Champotón, Campeche), “Dumbo,” “El Danone,” “El Rayo” and others (Quintana Roo)
- The U.S. State Department had offered a $15 million reward for information leading to El Mencho’s arrest
Sources: Diario de Yucatán; DEA National Drug Threat Assessment 2025; Al Jazeera; NBC News; Sedena/Guacamaya Leaks