Mexico City (AP) – The renewed investigation of a ranch in western Mexico, where authorities say that the Jalisco New Generation Cartel has unveiled trained recruits about how one of the most powerful drug cartels in the country works.
The cartel, of which the US drug Enforcement Administration says he has around 19,000 in his ranks, quickly developed into an extremely violent and capable force after it had pronounced the Sinaloa cartel after killing Sinaloa Capel Capo Ignacio in 2010 “Nacho”.
The Jalisco cartel is led by Nemesio Rubén “El Mecho” Oseguera Cervantes, for whom the US government has offered a $ 15 million reward for information that leads to its conquest. Oseguera attracted renewed attention this week after his image was projected as a band that was played at a music festival in Jalisco during the weekend.
The cartels of Jalisco and Sinaloa have fought for the control of different parts of Mexico, including the southern border of Mexico with Guatemala. Both are of the six Mexican organized crime groups who have recently been designated by the US government as foreign terrorist organizations.
One of the recent progress of the authorities against Jalisco was the arrest of José Gregorio Lastra, reportedly the management of the recruitment of the cartel.
How the Jalisco cartel recruits
The Jalisco cartel uses three recruitment methods: volunteers have been attracted by the wage and imagined lifestyle, which experts say they are most of their number; There is a targeted recruitment of ex-military and police services, who come into the cartel because of their professional training as trainers and leaders of squadrons of armed men. Finally, there is the kind of forced recruitment that researchers say it happened at the Jalisco Ranch.
For the latter category, the authorities say that the cartel uses social platforms – they have identified at least 60 pages – to offer fake jobs, especially as guards, with weekly salaries of $ 600, well above average for such positions. As soon as they have the applicants, they force them to join the cartel.
A recruit that reportedly survived the ranch said that the cartel has picked up recruits on bus stations under false pretensions and brought them to the ranch where they were trained for a month in the use of weapons alongside fitness training, said Mexico's Security Secretary Harfch. Those who refused or tried to escape were beaten, tortured and killed.
The structure of the cartel
Security analyst David Saucedo said that the structure of Jalisco is vertical, with Oseguera at the top.
Last weekend photos of Oseguera were projected when a band started playing at a regional music festival in Jalisco. Some in the crowd cheered and on Monday, President Claudia Sheinbaum, as well as the Governor of Jalisco, condemned the law. The public prosecutor of the state of Jalisco said it opened an investigation. Such impressions of respect for cartel leaders are not uncommon.
Under Oseguera are regional commands, as well as areas responsible for the production and sale of medicines, Saucedo said.
The DEA says that the cartel is present in 21 of the 32 States of Mexico, who exceed the Sinaloa Cartel's 19. Some analysts believe that Jalisco is actually in no fewer than 25 states, including the home of the state of the same name. According to the DEA, there is also present in around 100 countries.
How the cartel expanded
In less than two decades, Jalisco became one of the most powerful criminal organizations in Mexico and even managed to control some traditional strongholds of the Sinaloa cartel. Sinaloa is more recently weakened by a fight among his factions after arrests of important leaders, including Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who sits out a lifelong prison sentence in the US, and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who was arrested last July with a Van Guzmán.
Research and higher studies in researcher Carlos Flores of Social Anthropology said that Jalisco's “capacity for violent action” and style of “irregular warfare” helped his rapid rise, which coincided with the rise of Fentanyl as a very profitable income flow.
Saucedo says that Jalisco has also successfully connected with other criminal groups, so that some areas with a kind of “franchise” model can penetrate, such as in the central state of Aguascalientes and the most important border town of Tijuanana.
Ties with authorities and security forces
The case of the ranch also serves as an example of how the Jalisco cartel is able to work with impunity on the territory that it controls thanks to the complicity of the local authorities, said Flores.
Although they were discovered in September 2024 and 10 people were arrested, the ranch investigation was stuck until family members who were looking for their family members went in March and kept the alarm about hundreds of clothing items they found, as well as apparent bone fragments. Since then, the authorities have held three local police officers who were reportedly tied to disappearances on the ranch.
“There are signs that publicly show how that kind of deals were able to establish the Jalisco cartel in certain states, while eliminating their rivals, sometimes with the help of the public safety forces,” said Flores.
