Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” has emerged as the big winner in Trump’s war on fentanyl, aided by rising cocaine use in the United States and the dispute between factions of the increasingly diminished Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico, The Wall Street Journal reports tonight.
“The Sinaloans, Mexico’s main fentanyl traffickers, have become the target of the Trump administration, which promised to eradicate the synthetic opioid. The offensive has paved the way for Jalisco and its lucrative cocaine trade, elevating Oseguera to the top spot,” says the report by Steve Fisher, José de Córdoba, and Santiago Pérez on the rise of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and its leader.
Derek Maltz, who served as acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) this year, told the newspaper, “El Mencho is the most powerful drug trafficker in the world. What’s happening now is a shift toward much greater cocaine distribution in the United States.”
“Cocaine sold in the US is cheaper and purer than ever for retail buyers. Use in the western US has increased 154 percent since 2019 and 19 percent over the same period in the eastern US, according to the drug testing firm Millennium Health. In contrast, fentanyl use in the US began to decline in mid-2023 and has been declining ever since, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” the WSJ reports.
