Mexican cartel leader killed in military operation, violence erupts across country

Welcome back to live now from Fox. I'm Shauna Calafi. We are following some developing news out of Mexico today. The Mexican army says they killed a powerful cartel leader during an operation meant to capture him. The defense department says the leader of the Jalisco new generation cartel was wounded during that operation about two hours from Guadalajara and he later died while he was being flown to Mexico City and this is a very powerful cartel there in Mexico. The leader now killed by the Mexican army according to the Defense

Department there. For more on this story let's bring in Chris Dalby. He is an investigative journalist and author of CJNG, a guide to Mexico's deadliest cartel. Thank you so much for being here, Chris. It's an absolute pleasure, Shona. Thank you for having me. So you actually wrote a book about this particular cartel, the CJNG, the Associated Press calls it the most powerful cartel in Mexico. The U.S. Deputy Secretary of State described the leader as one of the most ruthless drug kingpins in the world.

Can you tell us more about this?

Absolutely. If you've heard about the worst of Mexican cartel violence, you know, the most abhorrent acts, the bodies, the decapitated corpses, the videos, A lot of that begins with the CJNG. El Mencho is one of the most influential drug kingpins in the last 30 years. I would put him at the same level as Pablo Escobar

and El Chapo when it comes to the quantity of drugs that his organization has moved in Mexico, in the United States, and further abroad. He is directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in Mexico and through drugs in the United States. The problem is, is that while he absolutely deserved to face justice, removing him removes the man who kept the CJNG united.

And while the CJNG is extremely violent, by far the most violent cartel in Mexico, removing him will likely lead to five or six of his lieutenants turning on each other and ramping up the level of violence to perhaps record levels in Mexico to control the CJNG empire.

And that's exactly what I was going to ask you. Now that he's dead, what does that mean for this operation? Who takes the lead? And will there be maybe more retaliation from the cartel now

that this has happened? President Trump has rightly designated Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations. And El Mencho had a bounty on his head of $50 million for anyone giving information that led to his capture. As I said, El Mencho needed to face justice. But the kingpin strategy, as we call it, which is where you focus on removing the kingpin, the head of the cartel, and that's your sole focus, has a major problem.

Because the kingpins are often the ones controlling an organization. And when they are removed, and we've seen it with Escobar, we've seen it with El Chapo, and we're gonna see it with El Mencho,

that unifying force, that cult of personality goes away. There are five or six leaders of the CJNG, which I identify in my book, who all have significant manpower, drug trafficking potential, contacts in the US, money laundering options, and incredible finances and weaponry that they will absolutely use if they think that they can claim a piece, if not all, of the CJNG. To my knowledge, El Mencho didn't pick a successor. To my knowledge, El Mencho didn't go to his lieutenants and say, when I die, when I'm

arrested, this is the next guy. He may have done, but we certainly have no information as to that. So right now, what we're seeing in Mexico, the immediate response is what we call the narco blockades or the narco bloqueos. This happens a lot when these top guys are removed. And the cartel wants to make a big show of, you know, burning cars and blocking highways

and blocking access to the airport. That often goes away within a few days, especially because the area in which they're being violent, Guadalajara, one of the biggest cities in Mexico, Puerto Vallarta, a place that millions of Americans go to on holiday, is where the government is absolutely going to want to show we're not letting the cartel dominate this for long. After that, across Mexico, there are so many criminal economies that the CJNG was involved

with. We're talking about tens of billions of dollars in criminal earnings

that are now up for grabs.

Right now we're showing some video, but you just mentioned those cars set on fire, the killing of this powerful drug lord, setting off hours of roadblocks with those burning vehicles both in Jalisco and other states. Can you talk a little bit more about this tactic that is commonly used by the cartels to block these military operations? How big of a scale is this? We also want to show a little bit of those images of the smoke that arose from these multiple car fires today. What do you take from this reaction from the cartel and what more can we expect?

So information coming to me in the last hour has suggested that there's been some movement there. Yes, in the hours immediately after El Mencho died, gunmen took to the streets, imposed a curfew on much of Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta. Again, these are cities in Jalisco. This is their home turf. This is where we can expect a stronger reaction. But there were videos of gunmen at the airport.

That appears to have been substantiated, but that situation appears to have been resolved. Police and army were able to retake control of Guadalajara airport. We don't have information about casualties yet, but the gunmen never reached the tarmac. We're seeing videos shared online of burning planes,

or you know, the whole city on fire. Those seem to be fake news. In Puerto Vallarta, the cruise port appears to have had a fire set there, preventing access. But again, those situations could probably be resolved in the next few hours to days, with some casualties, but a limited number. The problem is that Guadalajara is going to be a World Cup city in five months. Puerto Vallarta is one of the biggest tourism destinations in Mexico and a constant place

that Americans visit. That sort of reputational damage takes months or years to recover from. So what the CGNG has done done here is in an outburst of violence that might be controlled, create long lasting economic ramifications for Mexico and the United States.

I don't expect the violence in the medium to long term to be in the cities. I expect it to be in rural Mexico, in small town Mexico, where the drugs are going through, where the fentanyl is being manufactured, where the migrants are being smuggled,

where the oil is being stolen. Because those are the areas where there are no tourists, there are few cameras, and the violence can happen almost with impunity. And that is a problem that Mexico is gonna have to figure out.

And I don't know to what extent the US government is gonna be interested in helping them, because the U.S. was very focused on El Mencho. What happens next is open for debate.

And the Defense Department says that during this operation to capture El Mencho, the Mexican troops came under fire. They ended up killing a total of seven people, including the cartel leader. They also seized some armored vehicles, other arms, and rocket launchers, they say. So how big of a blow will this have to the cartel's operation, or might it weaken this powerful cartel there in Mexico?

The arrests and seizures of weaponry and killings outside of El Mencho are trivial. The Jalisco cartel has thousands of members and has enough weaponry to arm a small army. El Mencho was the cult of personality at the center of this cartel. Every video that they did showing their strength, every video that they did killing one of their opponents, every banner that they put up in their territory always ended with the same phrase, Somos la gente del señor Mencho. We are the people of Mr. Mencho.

He really ruled with an iron grip. And that's what I mean by his removal is so dangerous. Because when you have a cartel, and it's unique in Mexico, not even El Chapo with the Sinaloa cartel had this sort of sole power. El Mencho founded the Jalisco cartel. No other person has ever come close to toppling him.

And no one really knows what happens next. So it is definitely going to weaken the Jalisco cartel. I don't even know if the Jalisco cartel is going to survive in its present form because it is now very tempting for these lieutenants to go out on their own, either to maintain their own operations and keep the money or to try and take control of the entire CJNG empire.

Chris, we really appreciate your insight here. Anything else that you want to point out about this cartel, the significance of what happened today in Mexico or what you're going to be watching moving forward here?

Yeah, I want to make one thing very, very clear. While El Mencho again needed to face justice, he's one of the most influential drug traffickers in the history of North America. His removal in itself doesn't stop the drug flow. His removal will weaken one cartel temporarily. There are always more kingpins. There are always more drug traffickers. The demand for drugs in the United States and the potential

for criminal violence and enrichment in Mexico is such that within a few weeks to a few months, that situation is going to be normalized. So removing armature is a positive step, but it can cause more instability and that instability can cause more violence and that violence can cause a greater amount of drugs and a greater amount of money for the cartels. So net positive, I'm not sure we can say that.

We will definitely be watching to see what comes next. Thank you so much. We really appreciate your insight here, Chris. My pleasure, Shauna. And we do want to show you this. This is from Air Canada just a few hours ago on X. They said due to an ongoing security situation in Porta Viarta impacting the Viarta Airport, Air Canada has temporarily suspended

operations there today. We are monitoring the situation and in contact with local authorities who are working to resolve the issue. So violence erupting there in Mexico today after the Mexican army says they killed the leader erupting there in Mexico today after the Mexican army says they killed the leader of the most powerful cartel. We will be watching bringing you any updates that come.