Mexican Military Arrests The Wife Of Drug Lord 'El Mencho', Government Fears Reprisals

Mexican military illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/Tomascastelazo)

JAKARTA - Mexico's military on Tuesday arrested the wife of drug lord Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias 'El Mencho', in Jalisco State, sparking concerns about possible violent retaliation by his gang, Mexican officials said.

Rosalinda Gonzalez Valencia, the wife of 'El Mencho', was arrested in Zapopan, part of the conurbation of the City of Guadalajara, in a significant attack on the financial structure of organized crime in the State of Jalisco, Mexico's Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

Separately, a Mexican official said two Marines had been kidnapped in Zapopan, with the Government fearing Gonzalez's arrest could trigger a backlash from her husband's gang, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

"Gonzalez is being held for various crimes, with evidence showing his involvement in the illicit financial operations of an organized crime group," the ministry said, quoted by Reuters, November 17.

Oseguera, a former police officer, is arguably Mexico's most-wanted kingpin. The ruthless CJNG is widely seen as the most powerful gang in Mexico alongside the Sinaloa Cartel.

The structure of the CJNG drug cartel. (Wikimedia Commons/United States Department of Justice)

Oseguera, who was awarded a $10 million bounty by US authorities in 2018, has masterminded CJNG's emergence as a criminal empire spanning five continents, is one of the few long-term cartel leaders to have escaped arrest.

CJNG is linked to the smuggling of large quantities of the drug, including the synthetic opioid fentanyl, into the United States, where overdose deaths mostly related to fentanyl jumped to more than 93.000 by 2020, Uncle Sam's Country data shows.

Gonzalez was previously arrested in May 2018, but was released on bail months later.

Meanwhile, Oseguera's daughter, Jessica Johanna Oseguera Gonzalez, was arrested in February 2020, and last May pleaded guilty in a US Court to conducting financial transactions with a Mexican company identified as a narcotics dealer.