Operation Jalisco has failed after three years

On May 1, 2015, the Federal Government implemented Operation Jalisco, which is intended to dismantle the New Generation Jalisco Cartel and capture its leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho”, neither of the two main objectives has been achieved three years since the deployment of federal forces in the entity, on the contrary, with the arrest of the leaders of other criminal groups the Jalisco cartel has successfully expanded its operations in other territories.

At the start the federal forces mounted operations by land and air in the municipalities of Villa Purificación and Casimiro Castillo, in the southern part of the state, with the purpose of capturing “El Mencho”, however, the criminal’s gang members were tipped off to the operations. Despite the deployment of troops and units, Oseguera Cervantes escaped.

The group of assassins that protected him shot down the Cougar armored helicopter of the Air Force commissioned by the Secretariat of National Defense, killing 8 people.

In addition, members of the New Generation Jalisco Cartel carried out 39 blockades with 26 vehicles burned in 25 municipalities in the interior of the state and the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area; 26 of them were public transport, whose service was suspended for several hours. They also burned down 11 banks, a popular savings bank and 16 affected gas stations and businesses, according to the governor, Jorge Aristóteles Sandoval Díaz at the time.

In these three years, at least 13 of the main collaborators of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, “El Mencho”, have been arrested and one more shot by the Navy.

– May 28, 2015.- Víctor Manuel García Orozco, alias El Mono, regional chief in the Ciénega Region; He was arrested in Tlajomulco de Zúñiga.

– June 23, 2015.- Rubén Oseguera González, aka “El Menchito”, son of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho”, leader of the CJNG. It was the second time he was captured; his brother-in-law Julio Alberto Castillo Rodríguez was arrested along with him, whom a judge released on July 1 of that year and was recaptured on April 6, 2016 in the Providencia neighborhood in Guadalajara.

– September 1, 2015.- Arrested Javier Guerrero Covarrubias, alias “El Javi”, head of the Altos y Ciénega Region. Arrested in Zapotlanejo.

– September 22, 2015.- Giovani Castro Urbano or Juan Carlos Márquez Pérez aka “El Duende”, head of the Valleys Region. He was arrested in a confrontation with the Mexican Army in the community of San Antonio Matute, in Ameca. He was head of a plaza in the Region. He allegedly ordered the ambush that left a balance of 15 police officers killed by the Jalisco Unified Force in San Sebastian del Oeste, in April 2015.

– October 12, 2015.- Capture in Cancun, Daniel Quintero Riestra, nicknamed “Dany Quintero”, in charge of the plaza in the Metropolitan Area of ​​Guadalajara.

– November 18, 2015.- In Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, Iván Cazarín Molina or Víctor Hugo Delgado Rentería was arrested, alias “El Tanque” who was second in command of the CJNG, after the recapture of “El Menchito”.

– December 4, 2015.- Federal Forces arrested Antonio Oseguera Cervantes in Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, brother of “El Mencho”, financial operator and in charge of buying weapons for the CJNG.

– January 2, 2016.- Elvis González Valencia, brother-in-law of “El Mencho”, was arrested in a private hospital in Zapopan, after being shot in San Miguel El Alto; however, in December of that same year he was released.

– April 21, 2016.- Gerardo González Valencia, “El Cuini”, also brother-in-law of Nemesio, was arrested in Montevideo, Uruguay; was linked to the Panama Papers case. He is one of the financial operators of the CJNG.

– August 19, 2016.- Federal forces captured Sergio Kurt Schmidt Sandoval in Zapopan, accused of being the financial operator of said criminal group. A year later he was released due to errors in the process.

– December 5, 2017.- José Luis Gutiérrez Valencia, known as “Don Chelo”, consuegra of Oceguera Cervantes, was killed in a confrontation by the Navy, 11 days after leaving Puente Grande.

– April 11, 2018. – Jorge Luis N., known as “El Orejón”, is apprehended in Tlajomulco, who would be the operator of that criminal group and alleged compadre of the aforementioned leader of the CJNG.

– April 30, 2018. – Falls in Puerto Vallarta, Adrián N. presumed accountant of the criminal group of Oseguera Cervantes.

The actions after May 1, 2015, also allowed the confiscation of several properties: one of them was El Hotelito Desconocido in the Tomatlán municipality, used for money laundering. In April 2016, the Mexican Army and the Federal Police secured a hacienda of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, in El Grullo, where there was an arsenal and luxury vehicles.

Despite this, the federal operation was described as a failure by the academic on security issues by the University of Guadalajara, Fernando Espinosa de los Monteros, who notes that the main objectives were not met and the group has successfully expanded in other areas.

According to the specialist, the permanence of federal forces in the state after May 1, 2015, instead of reducing high impact crime, generated an increase in violence.

“These operations have not been successful either. The high crime rate is the crime that organized crime deals, which are kidnappings, homicides through executions, they have increased and more this last year”.

The above is confirmed by the data of the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System, which indicates that from 2013 to 2015, the number of homicides went down from 1,000 to 957. Since the “Jalisco Operation” was implemented , violent deaths in more than 90 percent linked to organized crime according to the authorities themselves, grew 40 percent from 2015 to 2017, going from 957 to 1,342 in 2017.

Only in the first three months of this year there were 415 murders, equivalent to 57 percent of the total committed in 2015.

As of March 2017 and after the homicide of a person nicknamed “El Colombiano”, in the parking lot of a supermarket in Puerto Vallarta there was a fracture inside the CJNG with which the Nueva Plaza Cartel emerged, led by Carlos Enrique Sánchez Martínez , aka “El Cholo”. Both criminal groups maintain a bloody war for the control and sale of drugs in the entity. Therefore, the federation will now have to deal with this new criminal group.

By: Elizabeth Ibal and Román Ortega – El Occidental