The death of one of the world’s most wanted drug traffickers sparked an outbreak of bloody violence across Mexico. Now cartel chiefs are manoeuvring in a bid to take control of the criminal empire
The US-born stepson of slain drug lord El Mencho has emerged as his likely successor at the head of the feared drug cartel he ran. Juan Carlos Valencia Gonzalez, 41, is expected to take over as leader of the murderous Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG).
His mother Rosalinda González Valencia – dubbed “La Jefa”, or the boss – was married to El Mencho, real name Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, and was a major player on the financial side of the $20 billion criminal empire.
She had been muted to take over as the head of the crime group after the death of her ex-husband, but most experts say she is expect to throw her weight behind her son.
Juan Carlos – also known as El Pelon, Tricky Tres and O3 – was born in Santa Ana in Orange County, California, in 1984. Little is known of his early life but his cartel-linked parents Rosalinda and Armando Valencia Cornelio lived in California when he was born.
He first emerged as a major player in the bloody Mexican cartel in 2020 when an investigation from the US’s Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) found he was responsible for making and selling “tons of narcotics” and was behind violent crimes since 2007.
Videos surfaced in July that year which showed the armed wing of the CJNG and the then-Mexican defense secretary identified one of those in the footage as Juan Carlos.
The US government returned a federal indictment charging him with conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance and using a firearm during a narcotics transaction that October.
The US state department put a $5 million bounty on his head for information leading to his arrest or conviction, describing him as “5ft 9in, 170lbs, brown hair and brown eyes.”
A spokesman said at the time: “A DEA investigation of Valencia Gonzalez reveled he was responsible for the manufacturing, transportation, and distribution of tons of quantities of narcotics, as well as for organizing numerous crimes of violence.”
Juan Carlos was said by the National Counter Terrorism Center to be the “de facto second in command” of the cartel behind El Mencho before he was killed in a shoot-out with Mexican security forces over the weekend.
El Mencho, Mexico’s most wanted man, was injured in a firefight with special forces troops in Tapalpa on Sunday during an operation to arrest him. He died while being flown to Mexico City for treatment, sparking a wave of violence from the power drug cartel he ran.
Members torched buildings and erected burning road blocks after the shoot-out and a bounty was offered for every dead soldier killed in retaliation.
El Mencho, a 59-year-old former police officer, ran a vast criminal organisation responsible for trafficking huge quantities of cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl into the US. The US State Department had previously offered a $15m bounty for his arrest.
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