The investigation into the ranch in western Mexico reveals some details on the operations of Jalisco Cartel

Mexico (AP) – The renewed Ranch investigation In western Mexico, where the authorities say that the recruits formed by the new generation of Jalisco, have revealed some details on the operation of the country’s most powerful drug cartels.

The cartel, which, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration, has some 19,000 in its ranks, quickly developed an extremely violent and competent force after it separated from the Sinaloa cartel after the murder in 2010 of the Cartel Sinaloa Capo Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel Villarreal by the army.

The Jalisco cartel is led by Nemesio Rubén “El Mencho” daresguera Cervantes, for whom the American government has offered a reward of $ 15 million For more information leading to his capture. Oseguera drew renewed attention this week after its image was projected as a group played during a music festival in Jalisco this weekend.

The Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels fought in control of various parts of Mexico, including the southern border of Mexico with Guatemala. The two recently appeared among six Mexican groups organized appointed as foreign terrorist organizations by the United States government.

One of the recent advances of the authorities against Jalisco was the arrest of José Gregorio Lastra, who would be in charge of recruiting the cartel.

How the Jalisco cartel recruits

The Jalisco cartel employs three recruitment methods: there are volunteers drawn by the lifestyle and imaginary life, which, according to the experts, constitute the major part of their number; There is a targeted recruitment of former soldiers and police forces who, because of their professional training, enter the cartel as trainers and chiefs of squads. Finally, there is the kind of forced recruitment which, according to the investigators, occurred at Jalisco Ranch.

For the latter category, the authorities claim that the cartel uses social platforms – they have identified at least 60 pages – to offer false employment opportunities, especially as security guards, with weekly wages of $ 600, well above the average of these positions. Once they have the candidates, they force them to join the cartel.

A recruit that would have survived the Ranch said that the cartel had picked up recruits in the stations of buses under false pretexts and had taken them to the ranch where they were trained for a month in the use of weapons in addition to fitness training, said the public security secretary of Mexico, Omar García Harfuch. Those who refused or tried to escape were beaten, tortured and killed.

The structure of the cartel

Security analyst David Saucedo said Jalisco’s structure was vertical, with Oseguera at the top.

Last weekend, photos of Oseguera were projected as a group started to play in a regional music festival in Jalisco. Some in the crowd applauded and Monday President Claudia Sheinbaum, as well as the governor of Jalisco, condemned the act. Jalisco’s state prosecutor’s office said he opened an investigation. Such Handwriters of respect for cartel leaders are not uncommon.

Below the Oseguera are regional orders, as well as areas responsible for the production of drugs and sales, said saucedo.

The DEA claims that the cartel is present in 21 of the 32 states of Mexico, exceeding the 19 analysts of the Sinaloa cartel. Some analysts believe that Jalisco is in fact in up to 25 states, including his attachment base in the state of the same name. It also maintains a presence in a hundred countries, according to the DEA.

How the cartel spread

In less than two decades, Jalisco has become one of the most powerful criminal organizations in Mexico and even managed to take control of certain traditional bastions of the Sinaloa cartel. Sinaloa has been more recently weakened by intestine struggles among its factions following arrests of key leaders, including Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who purges a perpetuity sentence in the United States, and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambadawho was arrested last July with one of Guzmán’s sons and awaits a trial in the United States

The Center for Research and Higher Studies in the researcher in social anthropology, Carlos Flores, said that Jalisco’s “violent capacity for action” and the style of “irregular war” helped its rapid rise, which coincided with the emergence of fentanyl as a very profitable income flow.

Saucedo says that Jalisco has also successfully combined other criminal groups, allowing him to penetrate certain territories with a sort of “franchise” model as in the central state of the Aguascalians and the key border city of Tijuana.

Links with authorities and security forces

The case of the ranch also serves as an example of how the Jalisco cartel is able to operate with impunity in territory which it controls thanks to the complicity of the local authorities, said Flores.

Although it was discovered in September 2024 and 10 arrested, the Ranch investigation blocked until family members looking for their loved ones went there in March and made the alarm on hundreds of clothes they found, as well as apparent bone fragments. Since then, the authorities have owned three local police officers who have been linked to disappearances in the Ranch.

“There are signs that publicly show how these types of transactions allowed the Jalisco cartel to settle in certain states, while they eliminate their rivals, sometimes with the help of public security forces,” said Flores.