CJNG is highest-priority transnational organized crime threat: DEA

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Mexico City’s chief of police blames one of Mexico’s most powerful drug gangs, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

The following are some facts about the gang:

— Led by former policeman Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera , the CJNG is considered by the U.S. Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) one of the highest-priority transnational organized crime threats.

— The CJNG is one of Mexico’s fastest growing gangs, among the top methamphetamine producers worldwide, and responsible for a large proportion of drugs entering the United States, the DEA says.

— Once minions of the Sinaloa Cartel, the gang of jailed kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, leaders of the CJNG broke with their former masters several years ago, seizing territory and buying off thousands of corrupt police.

— The ensuing struggle for control of smuggling routes for methamphetamine, heroin and fentanyl to the United States has helped to fuel record levels of violence in Mexico.

— During a six week stretch in 2015, the CJNG killed over two dozen police in an onslaught culminating in the shooting down of an army helicopter during a botched bid to capture Oseguera.

— In May, police in the western state of Michoacan found 12 bodies of suspected CJNG members in a truck, with a note draped over them purportedly signed by a rival cartel.

— This month rumors spread that Oseguera, who has a $10-million U.S. bounty on his head, had been killed. It was never confirmed.

(Compiled by Anthony Esposito; editing by Grant McCool for REUTERS)

Source: REUTERS