80% Of Organized Crime Homicides Involve CJNG

A new book on the Jalisco New Generation Cartel sheds light on the particularities of ‘El Mencho’s’ troop: its lethality, its war slogan and its unique form of extortion.

With only about 15 years of existence, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) has won three black medals: being the youngest criminal group in Mexico to reach the level of transnational, the largest to retain a single leader – El Mencho – and, now, being the deadliest in the history of the country, above the historic Sinaloa Cartel, the long-lived Gulf Cartel and the infamous Zetas.

The expert investigator in organized crime Chris Dalby dug into open data on conflicts between cartels in Mexico and found that 80 percent of homicides related to organized crime involve the Jalisco cartel.

“This lethality makes the CJNG the most murderous in the history of Mexican cartels. And it is also the one with the most homicides in its ranks: its members are more likely to be killed than members of other cartels. “Joining the CJNG is almost a death sentence,” the director of the global security consultancy World of Crime assures MILENIO.

His figures come from the Conflict Data Program of Uppsala University in Sweden. Its academics have spent years mapping the clashes between criminal groups state by state and month by month. Thanks to this file, to which Chris Dalby had access, the homicides resulting from battles between the CJNG, Sinaloa Cartel, Los Viagras, Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel and other enemies have been calculated.

“Los Zetas remain in Mexican legend as the most brutal, the most deadly. And in their time it was true, but Los Zetas were the ones who started the worst atrocities of the ‘war on drugs in Mexico’ and the CJNG normalized them, made them a daily occurrence. It doesn’t mean that the Jalisco Cartel is the only one to leave dismembered bodies in the street or abandon corpses on bridges, but it is the one that does it the most consistently,” Chris Dalby assures.

Because of this, the organized crime specialist chose an unambiguous title for his new book: CJNG: The most dangerous cartel in Mexico, in which he explains why this group born in the West was the biggest trigger of homicidal violence in the six-year term of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Between its lines there is an implicit suggestion: if the new administration headed by President Claudia Sheinbaum wants to drastically reduce homicides, it is necessary to go after the biggest generators of murders. After the four-letter cartel.

Violence as a norm

“There are several inputs that lead me to that figure,” says the author. “One is that many cartels, large or small, do not want to use violence constantly. That may seem a bit strange when we know the number of homicides in Mexico, but the Sinaloa Cartel in its lands – Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Sonora – prefers to achieve a ‘narco peace’ than accumulate deaths. It only uses violence when it is necessary to conquer a new territory or to eliminate a rival, as is happening exceptionally now between Chapitos and Mayiza.

“There comes a time when a lot of violence affects money, that is, the financial side of the criminal enterprise. Many deaths mean the closure of businesses, expulsion of investments, attraction of military personnel. So the cartels limit the use of violence. However, the Jalisco Cartel doesn’t work like that,” he explains.

Unlike the others, this organization uses violence as a constant instrument of repression and terror, even in times and places where it isn’t facing a direct rival, says Dalby in his book, CJNG: The most dangerous cartel in Mexico, now available on the internet in print and digital versions.

An example is the murder in February of this year of the Green Party candidate for mayor in Mascota, Jalisco. The municipality represents only two percent of the state’s territorial extension, less than 15 thousand inhabitants live there, it’s not strategic for the crossing of drugs, weapons or huachicol, and no one disputes it with the CJNG. And yet, “the Jaliscos” killed Jaime Vera Alanís with three shots, even though his victory seemed improbable.

“The CJNG felt the need to kill someone to show their dominance. Nobody questioned it, nobody wanted that position, but they operate differently: they don’t want to gain a social base, they are not interested in the respect or affection of the people. They only want to be feared. Terror for terror’s sake.

“This is a model they copied from Los Zetas, who ‘innovated’ by recording their interrogations and murders to publish them on YouTube. Only this time it is worse, because for the Jalisco Cartel violence not only serves as a threat, but to create its own brand, like big companies,” says Chris Dalby.

A historic massacre of soldiers in 2015 demonstrates this logic of blood: the tragic afternoon of Villa Purificación.

A transnational brand

On May 1, 2015, Mexico’s criminal history changed forever. That Friday, 18 soldiers were flying over the municipality of Villa Purificación, in Jalisco, in search of the leader of a little-known criminal organization in the country called the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

The soldiers were looking for a plain to land on when hitmen with RPG-7 rocket launchers, of Russian origin, shot down the Cougar helicopter. Nine uniformed men died immediately and those who managed to survive did so with up to 70 percent of their bodies suffering from third-degree burns. Something similar had never happened in the country.

“It was the first time that a Mexican criminal group destroyed an Armed Forces helicopter. The credibility they gained in the criminal world through this action was enormous for them. The CJNG went –in a single event– from being a secondary cartel to being seen as the greatest threat in Mexico and the United States,” says Chris Dalby. “It was the best public relations campaign ever created in Mexican crime.”

Another campaign to reinforce the cartel’s criminal branding was the use of explosive drones. While this technology was only seen in conventional wars, such as those in the Middle East, the CJNG brought them to Mexico. Its members inaugurated these attacks and chose the border between Jalisco and Michoacán as their test zone. True to their style, the attacks were recorded and spread across the internet.

“They didn’t do it to kill many people. In fact, to date, the number of people killed by drones is very low. What matters to them is the psychological impact on indigenous communities or self-defense zones. Letting them know that, even from the sky, they can watch or do terrible damage.”

And a third initiative to distinguish the criminal brand from the rest of the cartels is in the incessant mention of the leader. If Tesla is synonymous with Elon Musk and Apple is the same as Steve Jobs, the CJNG is the reflection of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the only boss who autocratically manages a criminal group spread across Mexico and more than 50 countries, according to the US anti-drug agency, DEA.

“El Mencho is not a very charismatic person, but he has managed to build a cult of personality within the cartel that is totally innovative in Mexico. El Chapo never had that level of public dedication from his troops. In each video, in each argument, the CJNG declares itself ‘we are the mob of Mr. Mencho!’ or ‘we are an absolute for Mr. Mencho!’”.

That repetition –the author affirms– is almost like a cult. It follows a script that has become an identifiable slogan in the criminal sector. It has a memorable component that many fast food or technology brands would like to have. Not only is it a ritual, but it keeps the troops united around a common leader, fosters unity and makes those who shout forget, even for a minute, that they are in a criminal enterprise where death is the most common fate.

Extortion: the worst ‘innovation’

“The use of extortion by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel is totally different from that of any other group, whether in Mexico or Latin America. Their way of operating is unique and, for that reason, it is the most dangerous of all,” says Dalby.

This “innovation” begins with a decision attributed to El Mencho: unlike other cartels, in the CJNG all the local bosses in a municipality have total freedom to pursue any economic opportunity locally. In Jalisco, it is seen in cattle or tequila; in Michoacán, with avocados or lemons; in Guanajuato, with tortilla shops. Every economic turn is crushed with money, but it is never random.

“They are very clever, because they influence the electoral campaigns. They can finance the candidates that interest them, threaten candidates that do not suit them so that they lose, or kill to send messages of horror. And once they have control of a municipal president, the first thing they do is demand access to the state’s productive databases. That way they no longer extort blindly. They base their quotas on economic data.”

For example, he says, a Jalisco farmer who plants agave to produce tequila will be approached by members of the CJNG with concrete and real data in hand: how many hectares he has, how many animals he has, which companies he sells to, what his profit percentage is. They do math with a formula specific to the “right to operate” and the result of that operation is the monthly amount to be paid.

“And if you cannot pay the absurd quotas they ask of you, there is another option they offer you so that they don’t kill you: they tell you that they are going to take your land and put it in the name of an associate, someone from the cartel itself. And there they are going to control all the income. So it isn’t a moderate extortion. This extortion is intensive, brutal,” says the former director of the think tank Insight Crime.

Due to this new method, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel could have a fourth black medal: the most millionaire criminal enterprise in Mexico, even surpassing the division between Los Chapitos and La Mayiza, which have consumed a great amount of resources in fighting each other after the arrest of Ismael El Mayo Zambada in the United States on July 25.

“If you go back to the analyses in 2011-2012 of the greatest Mexican political scientists, the majority said that the CJNG could not be a serious rival against the Sinaloa Cartel and that it would disappear soon. And now we are seeing the opposite,” laments the specialist.

Thirteen years after these failed predictions, the CJNG has managed to be the one that carries the most deaths on its tactical vests.

Source: Milenio