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Weekly Report - 26 February 2026 (WR-26-08)

El Mencho killing boosts Sheinbaum but could herald upsurge in violence

Mexico’s security forces took out the country’s most powerful drug kingpin, Nemesio ‘El Mencho’ Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, the leader of the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), on 22 February. The success of the operation is a major boon for President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has come under significant pressure from the US government for failing to do enough to combat the country’s cartels, with President Donald Trump threatening to take unilateral action unless Mexican authorities raise their game. This should grant her some respite on that front, albeit probably short-lived, but after the CJNG unleashed a wave of violence across western Mexico and further afield her government faces the risk of more retaliatory violence in the months ahead as well as violent infighting among senior CJNG commanders, or clashes with rival cartels seeking to take advantage of any internal fractures in the CJNG to expand their territorial control.

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