Inside the Operation to Take Down Mexico’s Biggest Drug Lord
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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.
So we have you here because the news that Mexico had taken out El Mencho, the head of the Jalisco cartel, was massive. And we've learned in the days since that the Trump administration played a big part in that. So level set for us. Why is the takedown of this one cartel leader such a big deal?
Well, El Mencho was arguably the single biggest criminal in the world. He was arguably the most wanted man in the world. He led the biggest cartel in Mexico. He led the biggest cartel perhaps in the world. And I know we tend to avoid using superlatives, but it's hard to overstate the importance and significance of this figure in the criminal world. And it's a really big deal that the Mexican government went after him because he had been on the run for two decades. He has ties to government figures around the Mexican government. And this is four months just before the World Cup arrives, just a few hours from where he was found. And this is a major move that could open a new chapter of violence in Mexico.
Yeah, I also think that at this point, this is a huge test for the Mexican government. They have never been tested like this. And the last time they tried to really take on a domestic threat like this was about 15 years ago. But that was a different cartel, which was not nearly as big, did not nearly have the geographical reach. or the penchant for brutality that Jalisco cartel has.
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.
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