\n<\/p>\n
Monterrey, Mexico \u2013<\/strong> Portraits of the missing cover Guadalajara\u2019s \u201cRoundabout of the Disappeared\u201d, a landmark renamed by families to highlight the state\u2019s disappearance crisis.<\/p>\n On February 22, the streets surrounding the memorial and throughout the city stood empty after the Mexican army killed Ruben Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the longtime leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n In retaliation, cartel members set fire to buses and taxis, erecting a series of blockades that spread across 20 states.<\/p>\n The widespread unrest demonstrated the CJNG\u2019s capacity for rapid coordination, fuelled by a \u2018franchise\u2019 model that allows smaller cells to operate under the cartel\u2019s brand and vast financial network.<\/p>\n While the group\u2019s economic reach extends into Europe and Asia, its power remains rooted in its paramilitary force. This structure relies on extortion, brutal violence and forced disappearances as its main tools to seize territory and control markets.<\/p>\n Oseguera Cervantes, known as \u201cEl Mencho\u201d, consolidated one of Mexico\u2019s most powerful criminal organisations in part due to a unique franchise-based structure.<\/p>\n According to the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the CJNG maintains a presence in every state of Mexico, with varying levels of influence, and operates in more than 40 countries across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa, and throughout the US. Its primary activity is the trafficking of cocaine, fentanyl and methamphetamine.<\/p>\n Raul Zepeda Gil, a teaching fellow in War Studies at King\u2019s College London, notes that rather than following a \u201cclassic organisational pyramid\u201d, the CJNG avoids a centralised financial network.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead, profits can be distributed across many locations and groups simultaneously,\u201d Zepeda told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n Besides controlling key areas in western Mexico, the CJNG controls the Pacific Coast region, including the strategic ports of Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas, crucial for the import of synthetic precursor chemicals.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir most important activity is drug trafficking,\u201d Zepeda said. \u201cChemical precursors that arrive from China reach Mexican ports and are then sent to the United States already in fentanyl form.\u201d<\/p>\n The organisation also generates revenues through fuel theft, illegal mining, extortion, migrant smuggling and money laundering.<\/p>\n On February 19, the US Department of the Treasury\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned a timeshare fraud network led by the CJNG that targeted elderly Americans.<\/p>\n \u201cTimeshare fraud in Mexico has plagued American victims for decades, costing them hundreds of millions of dollars while enriching criminal organisations such as CJNG,\u201d the Treasury Department stated in a press release.<\/p>\n The CJNG\u2019s extensive reach and rapid growth are made possible by a vast, powerful network that protects drug trafficking operations and ensures impunity, says Carlos Flores, an investigator at the Centre for Research and Higher Education in Social Anthropology (CIESAS). Flores argues that these \u201chegemonic power networks\u201d, shadow networks of business leaders, politicians, and criminals, have reconfigured state institutions to serve their own interests.<\/p>\n \u201cThese same networks, which control and administer state institutions \u2013 including security institutions \u2013 focus their actions primarily against their competitors, while simultaneously allowing these other networks to consolidate their power,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Forced disappearances and extortion are crucial for the CJNG\u2019s control of the market, seeding fear that silences communities and facilitates forced recruitment. This ensures a steady supply of disposable labour while following the \u2018no body, no crime\u2019 logic that minimises the political and legal costs of their operations.<\/p>\n Homicides and forced disappearances have surged in Jalisco since the group emerged in 2010. The CJNG rose from the remnants of the Milenio Cartel, a subordinate partner of the Sinaloa Cartel based in Oseguera Cervantes\u2019s home state of Michoacan. While across Mexico more than 130,000 people are missing, Jalisco currently ranks at the top with at least 16,000 reported cases, and collectives of families continue to uncover mass graves and what they describe as \u201cextermination sites\u201d.<\/p>\n Raul Servin, a member of the Guerreros Buscadores, a collective representing more than 400 families of the disappeared, told Al Jazeera that their searches frequently reveal human remains in varying states of decay and torture. They have found victims who were shot, hanged or killed with bladed weapons that were left inside the bodies, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a sadness and helplessness we feel when we see each body these people leave behind,\u201d said Servin, who has been searching for his son since 2018.<\/p>\n Beyond its financial power, the CJNG is notorious for its extensive arsenal of military-grade weaponry, including armed drones, rocket-propelled grenades, and firearms.<\/p>\n On February 22, more than 25 National Guard members were killed in Jalisco. In the past, the organisation has also carried out high-profile attacks against public officials.<\/p>\nRecommended Stories <\/h2>\n
The rise of a deadly paramilitary force<\/h2>\n