The highest-profile trial against a member of the top brass of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) began Monday in Washington. Rubén Oseguera González El Menchito, son of Nemesio Oseguera El Mencho, sat in the dock four years after being extradited. The United States accuses him of conspiracy to traffic cocaine and methamphetamines, as well as illegal use of weapons in relation to his criminal activities. The first witness to take the stand was Óscar Nava Valencia El Lobo, former leader of the Milenio Cartel and an old ally of El Mencho, who said he met the accused in 2005, when he was just 15 years old. Since then, the CJNG leader introduced El Menchito into the drug trafficking business and trained him as his successor, with hundreds of men under his command since before he turned 20, Nava Valencia said.
The prosecution decided to open the round of testimony against El Menchito with a lengthy presentation about his meteoric rise to the top ranks of the CJNG, one of the most powerful criminal forces in the world. “They were there so that he would be immersed in things, in the business, both of the father and the company,” El Lobo declared in quotes released by the newspaper Milenio. “They were accountable to El Menchito and his father,” added the drug trafficker. Nava Valencia was the leader of the extinct Cartel del Milenio, an organization that was allied with the Sinaloa Cartel at the beginning of the war against drugs and that had El Mencho among its members, before it separated and formed the CJNG, which are now Sinaloa’s main rivals. El Lobo also testified against Genaro García Luna, former anti-drug czar of the Felipe Calderón government (2006-2012), in the trial he had in New York in February of last year and was released at the end of 2023, after serving a reduced sentence of 12 years in prison.
Nava Valencia assured that until before 2009, when he was arrested in Guadalajara, the Milenio Cartel moved five tons of cocaine, five tons of marijuana and up to two tons of methamphetamines each month in the United States, Mexico and Europe, thanks to the collaboration of El Mencho and other criminal cells. At that time, the Oseguera clan was part of an armed wing of the extinct cartel and directed several drug dealing operations.
In the late 2000s, El Lobo was involved in planning and supervising the drug route arriving from Central and South America to Manzanillo, one of Mexico’s main Pacific ports, along with his brother Juan Nava Valencia, alias El Tigre, now also detained in the United States. “It is known that Nava Valencia maintained the states of Jalisco and Colima as his main center of operations, extending his presence to Michoacán and the Federal District,” said Mexican authorities after his capture.
El Mencho was a key figure in the Milenio Cartel’s exploitation of the market for synthetic drugs such as methamphetamines, according to El Lobo’s testimony. El Mencho and El Menchito received the chemical precursors to manufacture the narcotics and the criminal organization led by the Nava Valencias came to earn 200 million dollars a year from the methamphetamine trade, according to the capo. The United States dates the emergence of the CJNG to 2009, after the fall from grace of the Nava Valencia family, and claims that it has grown to become the main source of cocaine that crosses into its territory and is present in more than 40 countries.
Described as one of the most violent criminal organizations in existence, the expansion of the Jalisco Cartel in Mexico and territories such as Australia and Japan is linked, according to the DEA, to a model of “franchises,” which operate with relative independence and specialize in different links in their criminal chain. The CJNG leadership, however, has been dominated by blood ties since its inception, just like other criminal groups. The United States has been launching a judicial offensive for years against El Mencho’s relatives and his political family, who are at the head of Los Cuinis, the armed and financial wing of the criminal organization.
Rosalinda González, El Mencho’s wife, has been accused of drug trafficking in Mexico. Jessica Oseguera La Negra, her daughter, was also detained in the United States and taken into custody when she went to visit El Menchito. Her brother Abraham Oseguera Don Rodo was captured in Mexico in April and Antonio González, alias Tony Montana, another brother of the capo, is awaiting extradition. There are almost twenty brothers-in-law of Nemesio Oseguera who are under Washington’s scrutiny. Among them are Gerardo Lalo González Valencia, sentenced to life imprisonment last year, or José La Chepa González Valencia, who pleaded guilty a year earlier.
The case against El Mencho’s son has been shrouded in suspicion that the kingpin’s successor reached a collaboration agreement with the US authorities to betray his relatives and associates. El Mencho, who had already been in prison in Mexico in 2014 and 2015, opted to go to trial, which opens the door for details of the cartel’s activities and its links to other groups or even politicians to come to light. The Prosecutor’s Office announced, in turn, that it intends to bring one of his uncles to the stand. It was revealed that he is part of the González Valencia clan, although his identity has not been revealed among the possibilities.
The US authorities also said that, in addition to the testimony of the kingpins, they have recordings, telephone messages and emails intercepted from high-ranking members of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, such as the accused, El Mencho or Abigael González Valencia alias El Cuini, another of his brothers-in-law. Abigael, who was arrested in Mexico, is identified as the leader of Los Cuinis and a key operator for Cervantes, both in obtaining chemical precursors from China and India and in trading cocaine in Spain and the Netherlands in Europe, the court file reads.
Prosecutors also noted that they have photographs of the weapons that were used by the accused and seized in Mexico, as well as statements from law enforcement officers from other countries. Judge Beryl A. Howell, in charge of the judicial process in the US capital, was the same one who sentenced Jessica Oseguera, El Menchito’s sister, to 30 months in prison in 2021. La Negra was released in early 2022. Rubén and Jessica were born in California and have Mexican and US passports.
Source: elpais
