El Mencho, the discreet drug lord in charge of Mexico's most powerful cartel
The boss of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel has never set foot in a Mexican prison, and is defined by the legend of a drug trafficker who rose from the bottom, relying more on violence than on ostentation
At the beginning of the century, police in the Mexican city of Guadalajara raided a house in an affluent neighborhood where they found two AK-47s — Soviet assault rifles, widely used by drug traffickers. But these were special: the AK-47s — known in Mexico as cuerno de cabrito or goat horn — had gold handles. One was engraved with a horse, the other with a rooster — an unmistakable signature of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), the most powerful cartel in Mexico today, due to the waning power of the Sinaloa Cartel, which is bleeding to death in internal wars.
