Jack Nicas

He was extremely disciplined.

And as a result, that allowed him to elude capture for so long.

But it wasn't like they didn't almost catch him a few times.

So in 2012, they did go after him.

But his followers, you know, his gunman basically robbed a bunch of cars and they set them on fire and set up these roadblocks across the city and that allowed El Mencha to escape.

In 2015, they also nearly caught El Mencho, but his gunmen literally shot down a Mexican military helicopter, killing three soldiers, and he got away then as well.

But over the past decade, there really haven't been many close calls.

And I think that raises the question of why not.

I think that is in part because of incompetence by the Mexican authorities, but it is also in part because of complicity.

As we noted, this cartel had tentacles in governments across the nation.

And that complicates that effort when you've got policemen and politicians tipping them off.

Right, and I think that's precisely why the cartels have become such an intractable problem for Mexico.

So what we know is that on Sunday morning, Mexican special forces and the Mexican army raided a rental home in a wooded, picturesque ranch town about two hours south of Guadalajara in Jalisco.

And they were backed by six military helicopters, and they got into a very intense firefight with El Mencho and his men.

Mencho slipped out the back and tried to escape with at least two bodyguards.

Eventually, Mexican forces then found him hiding in the brush.

They continued to engage in crossfire with Mencho and his bodyguards.

They shot Mencho and his bodyguards.

They were mortally wounded.

They then put El Mencho and his two other bodyguards on a helicopter for air transport to a hospital.