Show Notes
We told you his life story in our 2022 episode, and now we're back with the sequel. El Mencho rose from poverty to build the CJNG into Mexico’s most violent and influential cartel, trafficking fent, meth and coke across the hemisphere. After years on the run with a huge U.S. bounty on his head, Mexican forces killed him in a daring military operation last week in Jalisco.
The cartel responded with unprecedented retaliation: burning vehicles, massive roadblocks and bloody clashes with security forces that left dozens dead and airports and flights disrupted. His death has left a power vacuum in CJNG, sparking fear of a new wave of turf wars and uncertainty about what comes next in Mexico’s cartel wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More from The Underworld Podcast
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In the picturesque Montenegrin port of Kotor, a cocaine trafficking partnership fractured into one of Europe’s bloodiest gang wars. A dispute over a drug shipment in Spain in 2014 split the organization into two rival clans, the Kavač and Škaljari, turning former allies into sworn enemies. What followed was a sprawling campaign of revenge, with gunmen hunting their targets across borders and leaving dozens dead. How did a feud born in a tiny Adriatic town became an international bloodbath with a brutal house of horrors and hundreds of millions of dollars of coke at stake.