US Marines have just launched a new operation targeting cartels and Mexico is already feeling the impact.
It all started with the killing of El Mencho which triggered chaos across the country.
But now this new move suggests the US is expanding its role and that could make the situation even worse.
Stay with me.
I’ll break down exactly what this operation looks like.
On February 22nd, 2026, Mexican Army special forces launched a pre-dawn raid on a gated residential compound in Tapalpa, a mountainous municipality in the western state of Haliscoco.
Their target was Nio Osagera Cervantes, Elmeno.
At the time, he was Mexico’s most wanted man with a $15 million US bounty on his head.
Six helicopters provided air cover while ground troops closed a cordon, guided by a multi-year intelligence effort that culminated in the tracking of a trusted associate linked to one of El Mencho’s romantic partners.
The operation was not a surprise visit with arrest warrants and negotiators.
It was an allout assault.
After confirming Osagera’s presence, security forces initiated the raid on foot on the gated community.
The assault was aided by two military helicopters.
As federal troops advanced toward the property, CJNG gunmen opened fire, triggering an intense exchange of gunfire in the surrounding mountainous terrain.
Cartel members used highcaliber firearms and other heavy weaponry in an attempt to repel the assault.
During the initial confrontation, several cartel members were killed and others wounded as security forces moved to secure the compound.
Amid the firefight, Oggera attempted to escape into the surrounding terrain with four members of his security detail.
A team of special forces personnel split off and pursued him beyond the main structure, leading to a second armed confrontation in the nearby wooded area.
During this exchange, cartel gunmen continued firing at advancing troops, and a military helicopter providing aerial support was struck by gunfire and forced to make an emergency landing.
Soldiers eventually found a wounded Elmano alongside two bodyguards.
The authorities airlifted him to a medical facility, but he died during the flight.
Eight members of the CJNG cartel were killed in the military operation.
The Mexican defense secretary confirmed two others were arrested and armored vehicles, rocket launchers, and other arms were seized.
Three Mexican soldiers were wounded.
Then the country erupted.
Following the operation, there were widespread shootouts and cartel blockades across multiple states in Mexico, starting in Halisco and radiating outward as the news spread.
Criminal actors hijacked and burned vehicles, attacked gas stations and small businesses, deployed tire spikes on roadways, and engaged security forces in multiple armed confrontations.
Multiple airlines canceled flights into Puerto Viarta, Guadalajara, and Mazatlan out of an abundance of caution.
Cars burned out by cartel members, blocked roads in nearly a dozen Mexican states, and left smoke billowing into the air.
Jaliscoco’s capital, Guadalajara, was turned into a ghost town Sunday night as civilians hunkered down.
By Monday, authorities reported that at least 30 suspected gang members, 25 National Guard troops, and one civilian had been killed in the unrest following the operation.
Security forces arrested more than 70 people across seven states and recorded at least 85 cartel related roadblocks on Sunday alone.
The Defense Ministry identified a senior CJNG figure known as El Tuli, El Mencho’s right-hand man, and a top financial operator within the cartel as the organizer of coordinated attacks in Chaliscoco.
Mexican authorities said he orchestrated roadblocks, arson attacks, and assaults on government facilities, and offered a bounty of 20,000 pesos, about $1,100, for the killing of each member of the military following the February 22nd operation.
Authorities deployed 10,000 soldiers nationwide to quell the violence.
Some 10,000 soldiers were sent across 20 of Mexico’s 32 states to maintain order following the killing of Eleno.
The CJNG’s ability to prompt statewide emergency measures and sustain multi-state disruption for roughly 48 hours with more than 250 roadblocks across some 20 to 22 states demonstrates a level of organizational capacity that few non-state actors in Latin America can match.
This was the single most dramatic anti-cartel operation in modern Mexican history.
And the trail that led soldiers to that mountaintop compound in Topalpa started not just in Mexico City, but in a military intelligence hub in southern Arizona.
The United States had been constructing an entirely new architecture for its war on the cartels.
The intelligence that helped Mexican soldiers pinpoint El Meno’s location came from a unit that barely anyone had heard of.
A new US military-led task force specializing in intelligence collection on drug cartels played a role in the Mexican military raid that killed Elmeno.
A US defense official told Reuters the joint inter agency task force counter cartel which involves multiple US government agencies was quietly launched late last year with the goal of mapping out networks of drug cartel members on both sides of the US Mexico border.
Did not offer further details on any information.
and the task force may have provided to Mexican authorities.
The outfit operates out of Fort Huka, a military intelligence hub nestled in a rugged mountain chain 15 mi north of the US Mexico border.
This is not a small satellite office.
Fort Huka is home to the US Army Intelligence Center of Excellence.
One of the most concentrated collections of signals, intelligence, electronic warfare, and human intelligence training in the entire US military.
The decision to base the counter cartel task force there was deliberate of the Mexican border, but intelligence was just one layer.
The Trump administration had been ratcheting up the military posture against the cartels on multiple fronts since taking office in January 2025.
Eight Latin American cartels, including six from Mexico, as foreign terrorist organizations for their major roles in drug smuggling and human trafficking into the United States.
The move marks a major escalation as an FTO designation grants the administration access to enhanced counterterrorism authorities such as the ability to launch covert operations authorized by the president.
Cartels designated as terrorists are now in the same category as al-Qaeda and ISIS and their members are now considered enemy combatants that opened a floodgate of operational possibilities.
covert action, targeted strikes, intelligence collection without the traditional law enforcement constraints, CIA surveillance drone flights approved by Mexico have reportedly gathered intelligence on cartel operations within the country.
The rapid speed and scale of these apparent foreign counteroffensive preparations, arguably not seen since the early stages of the war on terror, may indicate that the United States is on the verge of direct military action, either unilaterally or with the Mexican military against cartels on Mexican soil.
And then there were the boots on the ground, or rather the trainers, to conduct joint training with Mexico’s elite naval Marine Corps.
The training took place at the Luis Carpizo Naval Facility in Campees.
It was officially approved by the Mexican Senate’s Naval Ministry Commission and conducted under the supervision of the Mexican Defense Ministry.
A total of 11 Green Berets from the Seventh Special Forces Group took part in the mission.
They brought their own weapons, ammunition, and equipment, providing hands-on instruction to Mexican Marine Infantry Troops.
That was just the first round.
By early 2026, a second and larger deployment of 12 members of the seventh special forces group was authorized by President Shane Bomb.
The Doof published a decree on February 27th, 2026, granting authorization from President Claudia Shinbomb Partardo for the temporary entry of US military personnel into national territory.
The group consists of 12 elements from the seventh special forces group of the US Army’s special operations command north.
Their purpose is to participate in a bilateral training event titled Mexsoft Training Defense at various Mexican military installations.
The US Navy Seal Team 2 also moved into Mexico for training purposes, CIA drones, and a brand new military intelligence task force that had been building for over a year.
And at the center of the political storm driving all of it was one man in the White House.
President Donald Trump had been signaling for years that he would take unprecedented action against the cartels if returned to office.
When he got back to the White House in January 2025, he made good on that signal with a velocity that stunned observers in Washington, Mexico City, and beyond.
Trump campaigned on the southern border, painting a picture of a region overrun with violent criminals.
On inauguration day in January 2025, he declared the magnitude of the crisis required a military response.
The resulting deployment, more than 20,000 troops in the past year, from the most expensive fighting machine on the planet, has no end in sight.
The FTO designation of the cartels was the legal cornerstone.
But the kinetic side of the campaign was already well underway.
In March 2025, President Trump argued that since the cartels were waging war on America, it’s time for America to wage war on the cartels masked in the Caribbean.
In early August, the New York Times reported that President Trump had signed a secret directive authorizing the Pentagon to begin using military force against the cartels.
On September 5th, a squadron of F-35 fighter bombers was deployed to Puerto Rico in support of prospective military operations against the cartels.
As of midFebruary 2026, the US military had conducted dozens of lethal maritime strikes against suspected trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, reportedly killing at least 145 individuals since September 2025.
The strikes on narco boats had become a regular feature of the nightly news cycle.
But Trump made it clear the water campaign was only the beginning.
In January 2026, Trump told Fox News, “We are going to start now hitting land with regard to the cartels.
” The Trump administration had begun detailed planning for a new mission to send American troops and intelligence officers into Mexico to target drug cartels.
According to multiple US officials, the mission currently being planned would be a break with past US administrations, which have quietly deployed CIA, military, and law enforcement teams to Mexico to support local police and army units fighting cartels, but not to take direct action against them.
If the mission is given the final green light, the administration plans to maintain secrecy around it and not publicize actions associated with it.
The pressure was felt acutely in Mexico City, saying there would be no US military action in Mexico without her permission.
But the dynamic was more complex than the public posturing suggested.
On migration, Mexico’s National Guard expanded deployments to the border, contributing to the lowest rate of unauthorized crossings since the 1960s.
Mexico also authorized US surveillance drones over its territory, acknowledged their value in counter cartel operations and agreed to coordinated patrols with the US military.
There was a quiet bargain being struck.
Mexico would intensify its own operations against the cartels and share intelligence with the Americans in exchange for Washington not launching unilateral strikes on Mexican soil.
Shane Bomb, like her predecessor, had criticized the kingpin strategy of previous administrations that took out cartel leaders only to trigger explosions of violence as cartels fractured.
While she remained popular in Mexico, security was a persistent concern.
She had been under tremendous pressure to show results against drug trafficking.
The killing of Elmeno was in many ways Mexico’s answer to that pressure.
The capture was the Mexican government’s biggest prize yet to show the Trump administration in its efforts to crack down on the cartels.
Shane Bomb stressed that only Mexican forces were involved in the operation.
What we have is a lot of exchange of information provided by the US government, but the entire operation from its planning stage is the responsibility of federal forces.
The president said the message was carefully calibrated.
Don’t send your soldiers.
Understanding why El Mencho’s death sent shock waves across an entire continent requires understanding the empire he built from nothing.
Born into humble circumstances in Aguila, Mitoakan in 1966, Elmeno’s early life offered little indication of the criminal empire he would one day command.
Like many in rural Mexico, facing limited opportunities, he ventured north to the United States in his youth, seeking work and a better life.
It was there, amidst small-time drug dealing and petty offenses, that he first encountered the world of organized crime.
US authorities convicted him of heroin trafficking in the mid 1990s, and he served a prison sentence in the US before returning to Mexico, where he rose rapidly within the drug underworld.
Deported back to Mexico in the mid 1990s, Elmeno’s trajectory took a decisive turn.
He initially joined the Millennio Cartel, a relatively smaller but established criminal organization.
It was within this structure that he began to hone his skills, learning the intricacies of drug trafficking, extortion, and violence.
He quickly rose through the ranks, demonstrating a ruthless efficiency and strategic mind that set him apart.
The Millennial Cartel eventually fractured, largely due to internal conflicts and the relentless pressure from government forces.
From the ashes of the Millennial Cartel, the Kaliscoco New Generation Cartel emerged around 2010.
Initially presenting itself as a vigilante group aimed at bringing order to the chaotic state of Halisco.
That facade did not last long.
The CJNG is one of the most powerful and violent cartels in Mexico and is responsible for a significant portion of fentinel and other illicit drug flows into the United States and around the world.
CJNG split from the Sinaloa cartel in 2010 and has expanded across Mexico since 2018.
As of 2025, CJNG was the main competitor to the Sinaloa cartel.
Under El Mencho’s ironfisted leadership, the cartel became a monster.
As head of the CJNG, a heavily militarized criminal organization that rose to prominence in the past decade through a violent national expansion campaign, Elmeno presided over one of the most aggressive periods of cartel conflict in modern Mexican history.
The group became synonymous with territorial conquest, open warfare against rivals, and the rapid expansion of fentinol and methamphetamine trafficking into the United States.
The cartel’s reach was staggering.
The US Drug Enforcement Agency has acknowledged CJNG’s presence in 21 of Mexico’s 32 states, surpassing the Sinaloa cartel, which is estimated to operate in 19 states.
Some analysts believe the CJNG’s presence extends to 25 states with a stronghold in Haliscoco.
The cartel’s operations have also spread to around 100 countries, including the United States.
The Fentinel connection was the deadliest dimension of the empire.
El Mencho’s son was responsible for trafficking more than 50 metric tonses of Coca;ne and supervising drug labs that produced more than 1,000 metric tonses of methamphetamine in Mexico.
In 2013, he was one of the first contributors to the fentinol epidemic in the United States, pledging to do it big and build an empire from counterfeit Oxycontton pills laced with fentinol.
The organizational structure was different from other cartels, and that mattered enormously.
El Mencho’s grip over the CJNG was somewhat uniquely centralized and personalistic.
Unlike other cartels featuring multiple power centers, the CJNG revolved more tightly around its leader.
There is no clear successor with comparable authority.
The military capabilities were terrifying.
The group deployed military-style tactics, including armed drones and improvised explosive devices, and launched direct assaults on security forces.
The cartels are increasingly using weaponized drones to extend their reach and intensify their attacks and have allegedly sent operatives to fight on both sides of the Ukraine Russia battlefield to acquire new experience with drone warfare.
The US would not be attacking civilians, but well-trained cartel militias comprising ex-military personnel that are wellarmed with access to advanced weaponry, including armored vehicles, missiles, and drones.
In 2015, the CJNG famously demonstrated its military power.
The events of February 2026 were shocking in their scale, but they were not without precedent.
In May 2015, the CJNG shot down a Mexican military helicopter with rocket propelled grenades.
in Villa Perificassion during an earlier attempt to capture Elmeno.
CJNG’s de facto control of the port of Manzano in Kol Lima, Mexico allowed the group to import precursor chemicals to produce fentinyl and methamphetamine.
CJNG also profited from extortion, fuel theft, kidnapping, illegal logging and mining, migrant smuggling, and time share fraud.
The cartels had become so entrenched that they functioned as a parallel state.
The cartels are the fifth largest employer in Mexico with an estimated 175,000 members.
Estimates suggest that the value of the narcotics trade to the cartels ranges from 13.
6 billion to $49.
4 billion annually.
El Mencho’s son, Ruben Osagera, known as Elmanito, was sentenced in March 2025 to life in prison.
After being convicted in the US on drug and weapons charges with his son locked away in an American prison and his key lieutenants being picked off one by one, Eleno’s empire was being dismantled from the edges inward.
The Topala raid was the final blow to the center.
The immediate aftermath of El Meno’s death has raised the question that has haunted every major cartel takedown in Mexican history.
Does killing the king end the war or does it make things worse? Due to his son, Ruben Oagera Gonzalez being imprisoned in the United States, Osagera did not have a direct successor upon his death.
David Mora, a member of the international crisis group, said this would cause a power vacuum and could cause violent realignments within the organization.
On March 18th, 2026, the Wall Street Journal reported that Juan Carlos Valencia Gonzalez, El Meno’s stepson through his marriage to Rosalinda Gonzalez Valencia was now the CJNG’s new leader.
On April 6th, 2026, El Pis confirmed Valencia Gonzalez becoming head of the CJNG, having successfully worked his way through the power vacuum created by El Mencho’s death.
The ripple effects have been wide and violent.
The killing of El Mencho will severely weaken CJNG operations in Mouakan, where the cartel had fought a protracted war driven in part by Elmeno’s personal interest in regaining control of his hometown region.
Their regional rivals Cardelli Unidos may finally be able to drive CJNG out of Mitoakan.
Similarly, the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel alongside its allies in the Sinaloa cartel will have a renewed opportunity to uproot CJNG from Guanowato.
The international consequences are equally significant.
The death of Elmeno could trigger a domino effect in Latin American countries that are part of his cartel’s Coca;ne production, transit, and export network, particularly Ecuador and Colombia.
Regional competition over routes and territorial control could spark tensions and renegotiations that directly affect CJNG’s partners.
Former Ecuadorian Army intelligence chief Mario Pasmino told CNN that competition over drug trafficking routes and control of ports from Ecuador could intensify as the rival Sinaloa cartel seeks to reconfigure territories and local leadership.
Just days after Eleno’s death, the Mexican military struck again.
Audius Flores Silva, also known as Eljardiniro, the gardener, was captured and the United States had a $5 million reward out for information leading to his arrest.
Flores Silva’s capture marked another blow to a criminal enterprise that has quickly become one of the most powerful in the hemisphere.
According to Mexican security officials, he was the head of security for Oscar Cervantes and helped lead the cartel’s drug production and trafficking operations in the states of Nayarit, Heliscoco, Mexico State, and Zacatus.
The broader geopolitical picture remains deeply complex.
On one hand, the US Mexico security cooperation has produced concrete results that were unthinkable just a few years ago.
This type of military cooperation between the two countries is not uncommon.
With over 1,600 instances of US forces training Mexican service members in the past 10 years, but the current intensity represents something qualitatively different.
Mexican cartels, particularly CJNG and Sinaloa, have intensified operations with mass casualty attacks, drone strikes, IEDs, and heavy weaponry, demonstrating a shift from traditional criminal activity to insurgent style tactics that challenge state authority.
Despite arrests, seizures, and military interventions, cartels have adapted by decentralizing, diversifying into other illicit markets, and hardening their infrastructure.
The fundamental tension between US ambition and Mexican sovereignty has not been resolved.
A US military presence is seen as an intolerable encroachment on Mexico’s sovereignty, particularly for a country that still vividly recalls the US annexation of more than half of Mexico’s territory in 1848.
Controversy erupted after two US intelligence officials and two Mexican counterparts died in a car crash on April 19th during an anti-cartel operation in Chihuahua, highlighting Mexico’s firm stance on sovereignty.
Despite deepening bilateral cooperation, the track record of kingpin strategies in Mexico is sobering.
Decapitation of drug cartels has not caused the collapse of the criminal networks.
Violence ratings within Mexico have not been diminished.
Drug cartels have not been weakened enough to be handled by law enforcement agencies.
And the amount of drugs smuggled into the United States has not been reduced.
The roadblocks, arson, and armed clashes across multiple states following the military operation that killed El Mencho are tragically familiar scenes.
And yet, the scale of the current American engagement is something unprecedented.
In March 2025, thousands of combat and support troops were moved to secure the US Mexico border with the express intent of preventing the flow of illegal immigration and drug trafficking.
The administration also deployed military assets to support intelligence gathering along the southern border.
The resulting deployment, more than 20,000 troops in the past year from the most expensive fighting machine on the planet, has no end in sight.
The killing of El Mencho eliminated the head of one of the two most powerful cartels on Earth.
The CJNG’s ability to plunge half of Mexico into chaos in a single afternoon, proved that the organization remains formidable even without its founder.
The US military has constructed a permanent intelligence and training infrastructure aimed at Mexican cartels that did not exist two years ago.
Whether that architecture produces lasting results or becomes another chapter in the long blood soaked and frequently disappointing history of the war on drugs is the question that no one not in Washington, not in Mexico City, and certainly not in the burning streets of Guadalajara can answer yet.
What is clear is that the rules have changed.
The cartels have been designated as terrorists.
American special forces are training on Mexican soil.
US intelligence is being fed directly into kill or capture operations.
And Elmentoo is dead.
The old playbook is gone.
Whatever happens next, it won’t look like anything that came
