Luis Fajardo

El Mencho was a very big figure in the crime world, both of Mexico and internationally.

Friends and foes of Mexican President Claudio Sheinbaum have acknowledged that it is a very big deal for the authorities to have killed him on Sunday.

He was the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which was seen as probably the most powerful or certainly one of the most powerful drug cartels in Mexico.

A person who was compared to other major, major figures in the drug trafficking world.

Particularly his organization was said to have a big role in sending fentanyl to the United States, which has replaced cocaine.

as the drug of choice for many of these cartels obtaining fabulous amounts of wealth from smuggling drugs to the U.S.

El Mencho was 59.

He had begun as a police officer.

Then he had moved through the ranks of other criminal organizations until he organized the Jalisco New Generation cartel and rose to its top.

So certainly a very big deal for Mexican authorities, taking a lot of credit for that today.

And hoping that this is going to have some kind of an impact, particularly on the relations with the United States, where Donald Trump has been demanding more cooperation from Mexico in fighting these drug trafficking organizations.

That's what some commentators have been saying, particularly commentators who are critical of Scheinbaum.

They say that this action was also possible.

I mean, it certainly seems to assign a lot of credit to Mexican authorities, to Mexican law enforcement, who were the main drivers of this operation.

But again, critics say that this was also the result of very strong pressure from the U.S.,

And particularly the underlying threat that the U.S.

has been presenting, that they're saying that they have been suggesting in many occasions that they would take unilateral, even armed action against cartels if they perceived that the Mexican authorities were not cooperating enough.

So according to these commentators, this has also helped convince the Sheinbaum administration to move apparently in a much more forceful way than had been the case in other years under other administrations in Mexico.

Certainly, this is also a reflection of the power and the influence that these cartels have.

This is not entirely unprecedented.