In July 2010, Mexican security officials stormed into a wealthy suburb of Guadalajara and killed Ignacio Coronel, one of the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel. In the years of bloody fighting that followed between the country’s splintering crime groups, upstart cartel boss Nemesio Oseguera emerged victorious.
Oseguera’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) became one of Mexico’s most powerful and brutal criminal organisations. Taking advantage of the increasing instability, it forcibly absorbed smaller gangs across many of the country’s 32 states, trafficking huge quantities of cocaine and fentanyl to the US and leaving Mexico strewn with mass graves.
The reign of Oseguera, alias “El Mencho”, ended on Sunday. Mexican authorities, relying partly on US intelligence, followed one of the 59-year-old’s lovers to a romantic cabin in the hills of Jalisco state. Troops ambushed him, and Oseguera died from injuries in an aircraft en route to Mexico City, according to the country’s defence minister.