Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kintroff. This is The Daily. When the Mexican military captured and killed the country's top drug lord, it revealed how much President Trump's growing pressure is forcing the country to take on the cartels.
Today, my colleagues Maria Abihabib and Jack Nikas on the operation to take down that drug lord, El Mencho, and whether Mexico has what it takes to win a war on some of the most powerful criminals in the world. It's Thursday, February 26th. Maria, Jack, wonderful to have you both on the show. Three Mexico City bureau chiefs.
I'm sitting in your old office, Natalie.
Jack, current. Maria, former. Natalie, former. We all were in Latin America as correspondents together. Maria, you and I both covered the cartels at the same time and did some intense reporting on that. To put it lightly.
Yeah.
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Chapter 2: What triggered the operation to take down El Mencho?
So we're going to be seeing Mexico's security forces tested in a way that we've never seen before. So let's see what happens.
Okay, let's talk about El Mencho, this cartel leader. I think for a lot of listeners, he wasn't a household name. So lay out for me how El Mencho got to be the most wanted man in the world.
Well, he was born into poverty in the state of Michoacan, which is in the West. He has five brothers. He grew up kind of growing avocados, which is one of the livelihoods of Michoacan. A lot of the avocados that Americans make guacamole from come from that state. He dropped out of primary school, I think about fifth grade, to work in the fields.
And then by the time he was a teenager, he started to guard marijuana plantations, apparently. Hmm. And then he decided that he wanted to immigrate to California. So he did so in the 1980s. Apparently, he said he wanted a better life. So he moves up to San Francisco, the Bay Area, and he ends up falling back into crime. And he gets arrested by the police up there. He's about 20 at this point.
And he ends up getting deported. But, like... The savant that he is, he decides that he's going to start changing names and he starts crisscrossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Every time he's arrested, he gets thrown back into Mexico. He comes back. By 1992, he's arrested one last time at this point in Sacramento, California. And he's arrested because he and his brother were...
are carrying out a heroin deal. And he spends three years in prison. And so at this point, he's deported again to Mexico, and he's in his 30s. And he joins the local police.
Wow. Yes. Former drug dealer becomes a police officer. Kind of a wild career switch.
You know, it happens more than you would think in Mexico because we have to remember that Mexico has corruption problems specifically within the police.
Okay, so he becomes a police officer in a police force that is notoriously corrupt. What happens?
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Chapter 3: Why was the capture of El Mencho significant in the drug war?
They are also, in a way— a state actor. They have their tentacles in the state governments and in the local governments across the country, and that allows them to really operate unbridled. And it even means that when a hurricane hits, sometimes the Jalisco cartel are the ones providing aid because they want to generate some goodwill with constituents. So I think it's really difficult to
understand the importance of the cartels to the economy, but also to the society. They are a fact of daily life in Mexico.
Okay, given what you've both laid out about the steady and menacing rise of this group and their power across Mexico, I think a lot of people are going to be wondering at this point, what was the government doing this whole time that this was happening? Were they going after the Jalisco cartel in El Mencho? What was their response?
Well, a lot of Mexicans are wondering that as well. This certainly was a rise that wasn't just, you know, a single year. This is something that played out over 15 or more years. The reality is El Mencho was very elusive. He basically, you know, according to a senior government official I just spoke to, he really basically just used human messengers. He was not on the phone. He did not use radio.
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.
Yeah, and it also should be said that a lot of these attempts to kill Almencho were with the United States. Killer capture, really. And, you know, several American law enforcement had said to me and others on our team that... A, it was very difficult to catch him because he was just that good.
And then B, there was also this complicity with the Mexican government to an extent where sometimes they were just tipped off and he was able to scurry away.
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Chapter 4: How did El Mencho rise to power in the Jalisco cartel?
So
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Marie and Jack, I think one of the biggest questions hanging over all this is just given how long this cartel's power has been steadily expanding and how well known the problem of it has been, why did the Mexican government do this at this moment? Why now?
For one, the Mexican authorities had a piece of very actionable intelligence, and so an opportunity was created and they took advantage of it. But this also comes amid the backdrop of a very aggressive offensive against the cartels by President Sheinbaum. She basically has made clear that she wants to take a very different tact from her predecessor to go after the cartels.
And then there also is... One other major difference, and that is Donald J. Trump. What we have in Mexico right now is a sustained pressure campaign from the White House to do more against the cartels. He does not want any more of the same excuses. He is saying the Mexican government must solve its cartel problems or the U.S. military will do it.
And that has meant repeated and public threats of a unilateral U.S. military strike against the cartels, which President Sheinbaum has said is a red line that cannot be crossed. And so instead, what we're seeing is the Mexican government doing everything it can to show it can handle the problem itself.
Right. And just say how the threat of the U.S. military coming in and doing a strike in Mexico is perceived in the country and by the government specifically.
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