Mexico’s cartel crackdown hits top ranks – but will it fuel Jalisco violence?

The golden coffin of “El Mencho” , the late leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG), had barely been lowered into the ground when the Mexican military dealt a second blow to the very top of the organisation this week. As special forces descended on a ranch in the state of Nayarit, grainy drone footage showed El Mencho’s possible successor, Audias Flores, alias “El Jardinero”, being hauled from a drainage pipe he had tried to hide in, all without a shot being fired. With two strikes in two months, the Mexican state is apparently intensifying its operations against high-profile targets just as Mexico prepares to welcome fans for the World Cup – and it has so far avoided the violent infighting that previous operations against such kingpins have triggered. Wanted poster for ‘El Jardinero’. Photograph: US Department of State/Reuters “We’re yet to see any fractures in the CJNG,” said Victoria Dittmar, a researcher for the Insight Crime thinktank. “But that is not to say they won’t happen.” “With the World Cup coming up, I want to believe that the Mexican authorities have a plan and are confident that this is not going to cause chaos.” Since becoming president in 2024, Claudia Sheinbaum has pursued a more aggressive security policy than her predecessor and ally, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, with official figures showing a leap in drug seizures and arrests, and much talk about using intelligence to dismantle criminal structures. …