Inside Mexico’s Cartel Civil War

Tonight, Mexican authorities say they've killed the drug kingpin known as El Mencho, the leader

of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

And Mencho made Jalisco New Generation Cartel from something that was not known to the most powerful drug cartel in the world.

I'm here with Canal Cinco, Latinoamerica. We just arrived to the house where they got Mencho. Windows are shot out, everything is torn apart. It looks like the military came through the front, the forest area in front of the house because it's all burned down.

Some of it, actually, as we were driving by, is still on fire or smoking. It's like smoldering.

Let's talk about the actual El Mencho raid.

What happened there?

What happened was there was two Mexican special forces units, one from the military, it looks like, and the National Guard kind of did the outer perimeter. And there was a significant shootout and they killed El Mencho and a couple members of his bodyguards.

¡Cariño, cariño! ¡Cariño!

There is interesting reporting that's coming out indicating that El Mencho might've been executed. So he surrendered and they executed him, which wouldn't be surprising. We've seen the Mexican military do that Especially for high-level figures where they don't want to deal with that person. They'll just straight-up execute the person, right? We have no confirmation that definitive have what we do know based on the videos from the area There was a significant shooting and a mentor was eventually killed

a lot of people don't believe that mention was captured because it's incredibly hard for them to believe that he would have stayed at that location considering the two Marina helicopters were circling the area exactly where he was.

I don't know how things happened. I'm not an expert on the subject, but to capture the most wanted man on the planet in an operation like this, in three or four hours, I don't think it's enough.

On February 22nd of 2026, El Mencho was killed during a National Guard operation in Tapalpa, Jalisco. El Mencho was the leader of the CJNG, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, a hyper-violent and extremely powerful criminal syndicate known for their international drug smuggling

and heavily trained hitmen used unsparingly for their various conflicts. My name is Stefano Rindel, I'm the chief intelligence officer of Artorias, which is an AI-driven OSINT intelligence company. I'm also All Source News, which covers Mexican cartels, and I've been doing that since 2021. It's really been a huge focus of mine.

I want to talk about El Mencho's life. Who was El Mencho before becoming a cartel boss?

I mean, you can look at his story and say, you know, he came here as an illegal drug smuggling. A lot of those operations was detained, deported. I believe it was in San Francisco, where we saw his group.

And Redwood City, a huge meth operation.

Where I think El Mencho had his break. Like, how do you make not only the most powerful drug cartel in Mexico, but the most powerful criminal organization in the world? And I think it's because of his connections with the Valencia Gonzalez family. Then his wife, that then they got separated, I believe in 2018, was Rosalinda. That family controls all the money, so when he was deported,

he was still doing all the drugs here. This was a huge explosion in growth, that it just, I think, caught a lot of people off guard, because we had no hardcore evidence of a lot of the things about him. And that just shows that he was able to operate very secretively in the shadows, but even still was able to influence large segments

of America and Mexico. He was very unique in his game. He knew how the money and the guns intertwined. He knew the network and the families. He knew the corruption and the politicians, and he knew how to play everybody against each other

to enable him to grow to the power figure that he is now. Imagine the corporation Amazon and the Blackwater, right, the mercenary group in the US, merge into one. That's what a cartel is. The Trump administration, for example, has six cartels designated

as foreign terrorist organization. The Sinaloa Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, the Northeast Cartel, the United Cartel, the La Nueva Familia Michoacana, and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. There's more than this, those six. Each of them operate in different areas. They make money certain ways. They have different plaza bosses, et cetera. If you look at Mexican cartels as a whole, they would be considered the fifth largest employer

inside of Mexico. Jalisco Generation Cartel makes billions of dollars every year in just oil smuggling into the US. Avocado trade, lime trade. I mean, they're involved in so many industries and that's why they're so powerful and I would even there's even suspicion that el mencho has a dominance just in the drug trade and the cocaine trade I mean he has really

built in a decade an empire of a Mexican cartel. Once we got word that the operation was carried

out against el mencho we got in touch with ironclad reporter Katerina who went boots on

the ground in Tepalpa within 24 hours. This is the region where el Menchol was captured and killed. There's a massive police presence around me, as you can tell. A few burned vehicles and storefronts. It's also important to keep in mind that tonight is supposed to be El Menchol's funeral. And the CG&G have requested that the Mexican government return the body, repatriate the body to the cartel. There's a threat that if they don't repatriate the body, they will shoot everybody up,

cause chaos again like they did. We're literally at the spot where Mencho was captured and killed. Did you hear what happened here? Did you hear all the chaos?

Oh my God!

Come here, you mother!

We're driving up to one of El Mencho's homes here and you can see residue of a burnt vehicle on the pathway to Mencho's house. We've seen a lot of this going on where you can see where a vehicle was burnt. This whole forest area behind us was actually completely destroyed by shootouts, fires.

They were burning everything down. I don't know what they were planning with all this, but for me, it's not real.

For veteran reporters, it was hard to believe that the raid was actually being executed. El Mencho was used to having the cops in his pocket. And generally, the raids against drug lords in Mexico are typically for show and don't result in anything tangible.

I saw the first videos that said, hey, there's an operation in Tarapa, Jalisco. Right. Okay. Mexican operation. They're targeting a cartel.

That's normal. And then we saw subsequently afterwards reports of what we would call these narco blockades, right? The burning of the vehicles and all that. But it was very, it was kind of like in a specific area of very kind of close to Jalisco. That's a normal occurrence. Then we started to see it in Puerto Vallarta. And Puerto Vallarta, again, it's a major tourist area. So generally, they don't want to necessarily do it in Puerto Vallarta

unless they absolutely have to. Because that's my first little red flag that something big is going on. And then the second one is that we started to see the violence spread from the narco blockade. So it wasn't only in Jalisco. Then I started in Michoacán. And generally, when you see two states that's like a very senior guy but but what was very interesting it wasn't it wasn't just in two states it was in Jalisco, Michoacan, Colima, Aguascalientes, Tamaulipas, even some areas I believe in Tabasco, Guanajuato. It was basically all the territories that Jalisco New Generation Cartel controls. Super fast, super quick, spread out over and then it became very clear there's only one man who is able to cause this level amount of violence. And I remember tweeting about it before it became confirmed,

like it has to be Almencho. And then subsequently we got the report that he was killed. And then what was interesting was that shortly afterwards, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel said, okay, we're on a war path. It's important to note that the violence in Puerto Vallarta

and other parts of Mexico was very much physical damage, like they didn't target Americans. And for the most part, they didn't even target civilians directly from a casualty perspective. They targeted businesses, but not, they weren't going for civilian casualties. But what they did specifically target and very effectively was the Mexican National Guard. I believe the last casualty figures we got

was 28 Mexican National Guard soldiers were killed in the aftermath of that operation in directed attacks by Jalisco Generation Cartel for retaliation. So they slaughtered a large contingent, like that is the most violent day for the Mexican National Guard since their inception during the previous Mexican president. And that was Jalisco generation cartel sending a message saying we're not going to tolerate this and just take it for granted.

The reason I wanted to go to these two towns in Jalisco, El Gruyo and Autlan is because this was essentially ground zero for all of the chaos that ensued following El Mencho's capture and kill. And there was one individual who was held responsible for this and he went by El Tuli. He was in this town we went to, El Gruyo, and he was the one who told CJ&G, lock down, this is war, and basically burn Mexico down.

Prompting the US State Department to issue a rare shelter in place order for all Americans in those locations until further notice.

He was actually the one responsible for sending the order that for every National Guard member that they kill, the perpetrator will receive 20,000 pesos. I keep wanting to call it a war zone, but I also don't wanna declare that, although it really does look like that.

I mean, when we're looking at all of the cartel lookouts, the military presence that eventually happened, the burned vehicles, the burned businesses, it looks like a war zone. The very place where one of the right-hand members in the CJNG and the person really responsible for making the call for

Everyone in CJNG across the country to start burning shit down and taking out National Guard This is where he was taken out when we arrived. There is a heavy cartel presence. No military No police until we were leaving and and that chaos became very obvious

The CJNG's violent response to El Mencho's death has spread across 20 of Mexico's 32 states. As power dynamics continue to shift among the cartels and government ops, the rise in violence and retaliation attacks indicate a growing struggle for control of the land. Hey, what's up guys? I'm not in Mexico at all.

I'm in Canada, inside of an old-growth, beautiful forest called Stanley Park in Vancouver. But I wanted to show you guys something real quick. So on my phone here, I got Ground News pulled up on my phone, which is a super fire, dope-ass news aggregate, which also happens to be Channel 5's primary research tool. So what Ground News does, among many things, is compile media coverage of every major news story in the world,

then map out coverage from left to right, so you can see what the hell is going on and how both sides of the political spectrum are covering news events as they unfold. Look, we know the media is completely compromised on both ends due to corporate capture by mostly tech overlords,

but to grasp an often nuanced situation, you have to be able to see the forest through the trees if you know what the hell I'm saying. So I use ground news on a goddamn daily basis for that exact reason. And right now, I have cartel typed in in the search bar, which takes me to a homepage where I can see several articles here about CJNG and El Mencho that Ground News has split up

by topic. One story beat, dubbed El Mencho's Death Could Worsen Violence from Narco-Traffickers, features articles from various sides of the political aisle about the potential consequences of the post-raid power vacuum that's been created. 23 sources have covered this beat. On the left, the outlet Spiegel interviews a progressive political scientist and speculates

that this raid would only worsen violence in Mexico. Then, on the right, India Today's article is called, Only Fan's Model Denies She's Girlfriend Who Led Cops to Drug Lord El Mencho, focusing solely on the role of women and mistresses in this situation. Funny enough, there's actually major nuggets of truth you can find in both articles, yet due to the algorithmic shaping of our social media feeds it's almost impossible to get both sources in your brain.

Break out of your echo chamber, boom, ground news. Because of their many tools, including the bias ranking, I follow all my major areas of interest, like Middle Eastern conflict, criminal justice reform, and looks maxing on Ground Freakin' News. Because they make it easier for me to develop the balanced perspective

without having to endlessly sift through slop on the big four, for real. Whatever topic you're into, download Ground News on your phone or go to their website. Look for a topic page and it's probably there.

Aggregating everything, mapping sources and stories by factuality, ownership, and volume. And of course, including information about news media ownership so you can draw your own conclusion about what owner investors may be pushing an agenda and why.

I genuinely believe in what Ground News is doing. And I use this shit every day. It's the perfect partner for Channel 5 because our missions effectively align. And guess what? Subscribing through my link, ground.news.channel5,

which is currently in the description box and pinned comment of this video, or hitting the QR code on screen right here, is a one-stop shop for you to join our team, Channel 5 Ground News Nation, algorithmic echo chamber explosion. Boom! And guess what? If you subscribe to my link right now, you can get a whopping 40% off the unlimited access vantage plan, bringing the cost down to less than five bucks a month. And if I was you, I would hit that link right the hell now. Ground.news slash channel five. There's a big ass bee, so I gotta go,

gotta get out of here, back to Mexico.

I wrote a piece about this, literally about the militarization of drug cartels. And I think to your point, because they are able to then leverage that to really silence people at their whim and at their discretion, discretion because the Mexican government doesn't have what we would call the monopoly of violence. The idea is the president can order the military to conduct operations against the Iran or the drug cartels or Maduro, that's what we would consider the

monopoly of violence. The state, when the police with guns can detain you. The problem in Mexican cartels, that's completely broken down. And that's the new problem set that we're dealing with and that's militarization of the drug cartels. You have transactional cartels and territorial cartels. So what are the transactional cartels?

What you're saying, the drugs. I need to sell the product. There's buyers in the US, so we gotta get this there. A key example of this, if people see Narcos, Mexico the series, the beginning of the Guadalajara Cartel with marijuana, right? The other cartel is the territorial cartel and we were talking this earlier who would be a perfect example of a territorial cartel the

Zetas right? What do they care about? They want territorial control Because that's how they get money because they control the territory

So the routes the drugs get and specifically for those who don't know the Zetas control Tamaulipas Yeah, and the the Gulf region so they wanted to be able to control the smuggling route into places like

Nuevo Laredo, Renosa, et cetera. Yeah, all those areas. And they used to be gunmen and the kind of the armed wing of the Gulf cartel. And they said, hey, we can make more money. So how do we make money? Well, we got to kick the Gulf cartel out of here.

That's how they did it. And they became a control the territory. And think about it in broad sense, like a war zone, right? Russia, Ukraine, they're fighting for territory. So there's a lot of violence to get there. So we're starting to see, I think in the broad sense, every single cartel is kind of slowly transitioning

into a primarily territorial focus. And that territorial focus inherently makes them more violent. Even if they lose money on drug trade, they can still make money other ways, even just extorting the civilian population and stay relevant.

So the violence is almost a tool of creating fear. So the fantastical violence, bodies from bridges, decapitating people and leaving a message written on a piece of cloth on the side of the road, that's to freak people out so they

don't try to dispute the territorial control of the area. There's some areas that you get just a sheer level of brutality that I think shocks even those who've seen it. Like when I was deployed, I saw ISIS execution videos and I can say hands down that the cartel videos are worse. And one of the most brutal ones, I want to explain this without sounding like a psychopath, but I think it's very important.

Well, you didn't do it.

So it's okay. But the fact that I think I caught it kind of concerns me. And what in this specific video, what happened was it was a bunch of guys in the CDN, typical execution video, they're on the back, and then they have a guy kneeling in front of them who belongs to La Línea. La Línea is basically the Juárez cartel. And this was done in northern Zacatecas, this is a LaLiña member. And they always pretend, they always portray themselves, cartel members

as we're Robin Hood, we're here to do justice and because the government sucks and corruption. And what happened was then after their speech, they get the guy. And what they do is with the knife, they peel his skin off from his face. And then they remove the skin surgically, basically. So you see like this muscles with the skulls and the eyeball and everything.

They remove it. They open his chin up all the way down here, completely open it, remove the tongue, and then they cut off the heart. And then towards the end of the video, they pull it out. And then how they end the video is they show in the camera and you see the heart beating until it stops beating. And in the moment it stops fading, the video cuts.

And the message was sent and received of like, we're violent. You can't fight back against us. And that was the one video that I probably said, I need a break because it was just the sheer level of brutality and violence was completely eye-opening It's also a way for people to it normalizes violence They're not gonna go to the government and say hey This is unacceptable because it's been so normalized and in the end of the day the government says well

This is just a fact of matter. This is just life Historically when we saw violence go up in Mexico is because cartel leadership kind of gets captured, kill, and then this idea, well, you kill one cartel leader, 50 form.

And the way Stefano sees it, this power vacuum and the battle for control that ensues ultimately weakens a unified cartel's ability to focus on importing drugs like fentanyl into the US.

The US is seeing a drop in drug overdose deaths for the first time in years. New data from the CDC shows a 25% decline in overdose deaths. Experts say fewer

deaths from synthetic opioids like fentanyl are driving the trend. Fentanyl has dropped in the US from a consumption and even smuggling into here. And I think I have a lot of suspicions why that actually really happened. But that's why we've seen a huge surge in cocaine and now the price of cocaine is plummeting. But in 2024, there was a major development, I think, much more so than what we're seeing recently, at least with El Mencho, and it's a key cartel leader was captured named Bayo Zambada.

He was one of the key figures of the Sinaloa cartel. And the way that happened was that the US basically churned one of El Chapo's sons, who was part of a rival faction of the Sinaloa cartel called Los Chapitos, basically made him an informant to the FBI.

Wow, so he snitched.

He snitched. There is a wide range of cooperation, from agreeing to discuss a plea deal to testifying against cartel associates.

So Los Chapitos are four brothers of El Chapo when he was detained. Juan Archibaldo, Jesus Alfredo, Ovidio Guzman, and Joaquin Guzman, the same name as the father. When the father of El Chapo was captured, the two factions of the Sinaloa cartel, Los Chapitos, aforementioned, and then Mayo Zambada. What happened was during the Biden administration, they grabbed Joaquin Guzman and basically leveraged him to trick Mayo Zambada into flying into the US where federal agents detained him in El Paso. And this was all the way back in 2024. Well, who took over after Miles Mbatha was captured?

His son, a guy named Mayito Flaco. And obviously it was public record, Mayito Flaco saw, wait a minute, Los Chapitos, El Chapo's son, turned in my father to US prison? Well, that's the ultimate betrayal.

And so he declared war on Los Chapitos, and that's when we had the Sinaloa Cartel Civil War is Los Chapitos were not doing so hot. They actually announced an alliance with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. So what used to be historical rivals became allies. And that alliance, I think, fundamentally transformed the cartel dynamics in Mexico where we're starting to see basically, not everybody, but for the most part,

two major blocks forming inside of Mexico within the Jalisco New Generation Cartel Los Chapitos, and then the Mayito Flacos with other groups such as Chapo Isidro or CDN. And that's where you're seeing these two alliances that are really driving the violence in Mexico, mostly in Sinaloa, Durango, and even some other areas in Mexico, we're seeing

it as well. We're finally treating the cartels as the core national security threat that they really are. The cartels are waging war on America and just as I promised in the campaign we're waging war on them like they've never seen before. Cartels their

biggest threat is not the US, it's not the Mexican government, it's other rival cartels. Jalisco New Generation Cartel, who are their main rival? The Mayito Flacos. Who are the Mayito Flacos main rival? The alliance of Jalisco New Generation Cartel and Los Chapitos. The Mayito Flacos have an alliance with Chapo Isidro, which is the Meza Flores Cartel. They're also suspected of having an alliance with the CDN Cartel. And that's kind of the beginning where I said the main difference.

It's this idea of these two main groups are forming. are they able to sustain themselves as one unitary cartel? I have reporting that his stepson, Juan Carlos Valencia Gonzalez, also known as O3, has been named as the new leader of Jalisco New Generation Cartel. What's interesting about him is, as I said, not only is he the stepson,

but he was born in Santa Ana, California. He's a US citizen.

Wow, it's in Morris County. Yeah. Interesting. He comes from the Valencia Gonzalez family, right? The Los Queenies are what they're called. Los Queenies are the aristocratic and financial arm of the Jalisco New Generation cartel. Led by the Gonzalez Valencia family, they specialize in trafficking cocaine and meth into the US, as well as managing

massive money laundering networks in cities like LA, Chicago, and Phoenix. Hey, what's up you guys? Andrew here. I just mentioned Phoenix, Phoenix, Arizona. And guess what? I have some special Phoenix related news. Check this out.

Hey guys, Hunter Biden here. I just got a call from Andrew Callahan. He asked me to come out on the Channel 5 Carnival Tour at the end of the month. I think we start in Phoenix and then we go to San Diego and we end in Albuquerque and I think he's trying to organize a cage match, me versus Eric and Don Jr. I told him I'd do it, 100% in, if he can pull it off.

And if he can't, I'm still coming. And I think he's got a lot of other surprises up his sleeve. A lot of fun. And I hope I can see you guys out there. You can get tickets online right now. And I could see you guys out there you can get tickets online right now and I'll see you out on tour.

Alright as Hunter mentioned you can get tickets right now to the C5 Carnival stops in Phoenix, San Diego and Albuquerque at www.channel5.news I'm gonna put the link in the pinned comment and description box of this video hope to see you guys there alright back to Mexico. What do you think El Mencho's net worth was at the time of his death?

You have to track the drugs, the oil, the avocado, the lime, the human smuggling, money laundry, et cetera. And the expenses and revenue has to be easily in the tens of billions of dollars. As long as they all coalesce around 03, the stepson, for the most part, more than likely everything can continue to stay normal and it's just a new leadership. The question that we have though is,

is the appointment of 03 as the new leader enough to kind of keep this cartel and the Jalisco New Generation cartel to continue the same? Or do we see fragmentation in a civil war similar to what we see in the Sinaloa cartel or the Gulf cartel?

In many ways, the successful execution of this raid can be seen as indicative of policy change within the Mexican government. Originally, President Claudia Sheinbaum ran on a hugs-not-bullets platform.

No abrazos, no balazos, no quiere decir que estemos cruzados de brazos.

Suggesting that treating the root cause of cartel criminality, i.e. poverty, and offering compassion would ultimately lead to a reduction of action. It's still their accomplice,

it's still covering up all their people.

I think this government and the previous one have been the governments that have done more damage to our country in recent times.

Back in the day, the Cali cartel in Colombia, the main thing, right? There's aura almost of these cartel leaders, Pablo Escobar, right? And Menchel and Mayra Zambada were kind of the new type of, at least in the last decade, were kind of these major figures and they both are now gone and Menchel being killed.

Why now? Why would Caires Saint-Bon, the president of Mexico, go after Menchel?

Well, I mean, logically, I felt like, especially after the assassination of Carlos Manzo, who is the governor that was like gonna take on the narcos and he was killed at a I think a public event and we covered some pretty major Gen Z protests on the streets of Mexico City. It was mostly older people, but they were there basically Speaking about Claudia Scheinbaum like she was this like narco compliant sort of like inactive president who was not doing enough to combat the way that cartels had infiltrated more rural states and cities and

I felt like this was their way of getting even. That was my first reaction. I was like, all right, well, maybe this is proof that the Mexican government actually does have the capacity to take out some of these top level cartel bosses.

I do believe, for example, when Trump did the whole Maduro raid, the Mexicans saw that and they said, oh, shit, we don't want SEAL Team 6 or Delta Force or drone strikes to happen because it's sovereignty And so there was this argument that Kai to Shan Yuban said, okay Who's the top dog we can go after that puts everything to rest and you know buys us political goodwill with the US? It's a menschel. So hey, let's go after a menschel because I can go after a menschel

There is literally nobody you won't go after it does look like one of the key aspects They had to find him was through the mistress But I if I may it's not like this guy was bin Laden I mean the ranch that they got him that ranch was sanctioned by the US like this wasn't an unknown location It's not like bin Laden where eventually we found him after years in a bought about Pakistan and this convoluted intelligence operation A lot of these cartel members. We kind of more or less know

The general areas are at so now we're really getting to the question of US intervention here. You talked about Colombia and how Colombia you know it used to be Medellin was a war zone now everybody with a fat crypto wallet is moving there to escape the dating scene here because they see it as restrictive and they want a more traditional lady. Things have changed I mean there's some guys getting scopamine you know and dying so I would not advise going to Medellin if you're watching this if you're looking to only procure

Ladies of the night however different topic Columbia is doing great Yeah, more or less is obviously problems with the what remained of the FARC in the jungle and they're definitely still involved in narco trafficking And I don't even want to go down the whole left-wing guerrilla narco connection there. It's too much right now. However... That is a great thing though, that is a great conversation. It's crazy. The DEA was instrumental in the Escobar takedown. Yeah. The Escobar takedown kind of led to an era of prosperity in Colombia. Now with Petro Gustavo, the problem he's running into is we're being flooded with cocaine. Price of cocaine in the US is going down. I think in the last 48 hours Mexico just in the Pacific Coast has announced two major

drug seizures of at least five tons of cocaines in two different vessels. So for

all the people that love cocaine I am sorry the President of the United States does not

love cocaine we encourage you to go to rehab and we're gonna keep on pursuing

America's interest. I think anybody objectively can look at Colombia say even with all the problems they have they they're still violent, it's infinitely better than where we're at.

And you think that Mexico could get to that point, like maybe in the coming decades, if there was really good collaboration between the federal government and the DEA with like the Mexican army and special forces?

There is extensive cooperation between the Mexicans and the US, right? And this isn't a battle of like, who can do it better? The reasons why we can't solve this necessarily, one I said is the corruption. It's so invasive that it's impossible really to do. But two, I go back to this argument I made about los guinies. If you literally were to grab every single dollar that the guinies have ever dealt with and removed it from the Mexican economy, the Mexican economy collapses overnight. People say,

go after the money, go after the money. Well, we can't. Why? Because if we do, what economy is left?

As mentioned, Los Queenies and other narco-based enterprises no longer rely on drugs as their sole revenue source and have applied the same pressure, violence, and extortion tactics to dominate the oil and avocado industries. And who pays the price?

Well, Mexican civilians do.

We had uncertainty and fear for a while because of everything I've heard. What happened this time was that there was direct damage to people. It wasn't just a confrontation between the country's security or the state or the municipality, with them directly, but there was a direct impact on the population.

I worked at Didi's platform, I just rented it. A friend rented it to me cheap so I could work. I mean, you're not right, why did they burn your car? rent it out. A friend of mine rented it out for me cheap so I could work. So you have no reason why you got burned? Well, my daughter was there, a 10-year-old niece, my neighbors were crying and everything. It does feel bad, but you can't do anything.

There's no one to help you. No one listens to you. No one asks you. I told them, hey, psychological help for the kids.

No.

Nothing. I sent emails, I sent public messages and everything. Zero? Yes, there's no way you can handle it. You talk to the people who did it and you stay the same. Well, nothing. No problem, inconvenience, or neighbors. We've been living here for over 20 years.

Oh, I'm so sorry. What happened?

How are they helping you? Is there insurance?

Insurance doesn't apply because it's treated as vandalism. But why are they threatening you? I He's had this car for 20 years and he had just put a ton of money towards fixing it.

And then three days ago, he comes outside and the vehicle is in flames. These are the people who are victims of organized crime when they really are just trying to make an honest day-to-day living.

You speak Spanish, you've been to Mexico a bunch, right? Mexicans are so cool and so trustworthy. It's confusing to me as someone who's never interacted with cartel members how there's also this brutality in Mexican society that seems to surpass almost anywhere in the world.

America is a really violent antisocial place, but you don't necessarily have that same fringe of people doing the kind of thing they're doing.

Mexico, 90% of crime is not even investigated. The vast majority of homicides, no getting even investigated, let alone convicted. And if they're not even going to investigate a crime, what's holding you back from committing it? And think about it. It's almost like, in a way, the purge. Even if outside of this crime, let's say you and I have a business dispute, and it's going to take me 10 months, 10 years to solve it through court,

or I could just kill you and I win. What do you think these people... and there's no punishment? that's the problem. The judiciary in Mexico is completely ineffective. Let's say the Jalisco New Generation cartel hangs bodies on a bridge in LA. I mean, just imagine the uproar that would exist in the United States because of that.

And the political pressure that that would put on to our government at the local, state, and federal level to action and respond to it. And I think that's the fundamental problem in Mexico, that that has been broken down completely. I mean, you can make the argument that many,

probably many in Mexico would rather just have back in the day, the Guadalajara cartel, which is one cartel, everybody making money, drugs get pushed into the US, but violence is an imaginable acceptable level. But the question then becomes, does the US care about that?

Trafficking and moderating information is another powerful tool of the cartels and corrupt officials. Tightly controlled through violence and cultural influence, the truth is culled by curators who will edit things mercilessly.

Getting this type of coverage that I wanted to do today can prove to be very difficult and also risky.

There's a reason why a lot of the corruption aspect, Mexican journalists can't cover it because if they do, they get targeted. And I wouldn't even think just by the cartels. I would even say it's by government officials who use the cover of cartels to just silence people in honest reporting. I know people in Mexico that are citizen journalists

who can't release their name because if they do, it's to your point.

I got in contact with a breaking crime news reporter who discovered a narcomanta, so a banner with a narco message on it. And he said that here the law is that you cannot say cartel, you cannot say what the narco message says, because actually it gives authorities here legal principle to pull you aside and say, how do you know?

How do you know it was the cartel? How do you know what it said and who's responsible for this and who it's targeting? It's threatening the Secretary Fabian Gomez. If you want peace in Colima and zero impunity, like you say, I'll give you the name of uniforms that are in collusion with organized crime. And if you want evidence, I have it.

There's a phenomenal New York Times report that talks about the story of General Cienfuegos. General Cienfuegos was the senior army commander within the Mexican military. I mean he was the top of the top of the top. He was indicted in the United States and detained and eventually they had to let him go because the Mexicans threw a fit and this was all during the first Trump administration. But if you read that article people think that cartels control the corruption and that they bribe Mexican government officials and these Mexican government officials like behold into the cartels And they do the cartels bidding, but if you read that story, it's like mmm

The question is that who really controlled who because what happened was? General Theofilo one day said you know what I'm done with BLO even though you guys have paid me million dollars I'm done. I don't want to do you anymore. He sent the Mexican special forces after him. When the Mexican special forces went in the raid and there's this very, this is a very famous video because this is where the mini gun, the Black Hawk firing the mini gun.

It looks like he surrendered. He goes to the Mexican special forces. He says, hey, I'm Tien Fuego's guy. I'm his guy. What are you doing? Why are you going after me? executed him. And what that shows to you is who really controls who in that aspect? And I think that's not a conversation we're having, which is a lot

of times the Mexican government is the corrupt official that tells the cartels you will pay me a portion of your profit and if you don't I'm gonna send the military after you to kill you and I'll go with your rival. I think it's always safe to assume that corruption is at any level within the Mexican government. What is the most effective anti-corruption body in Mexico? Is the Southern District of New York. And you know, you love it or hate it,

but you know, we see sanction now much more a lot of the sanctions that we're seeing within this administration, targeted against Mexican politicians, right? Really singling out their corrupt dealings. It's not the truth inside of Mexico that matters.

It sounds crazy. It's the perception. The cartel members thrive on perception. If they're perceived to be within the power structure, if they're perceived to be powerful, that's more valuable than the actual truth of the matter of how they can do it. And that's where you see cartel members really try to push very heavily

within the culture and the news and society. It's to give this perception of power because the perception of power is what gives them the deterrent. and that deterrence enables them to operate. And I think that's the fundamental issue, is the power structure of that. And it's not a one answer fits all type of scenario, you have to analyze it dependently in each scenario,

but who has a power structure and the corruption of it? Is the cartels to the government, or is it to the government to the cartel? And when we're talking about Mexican cartels and the violence and the war there, it's not just the cartel war, It's dozens of conflicts spread across Mexico that some of them have nothing to do with the other, but that then creates this idea

of the normalization of violence and the power structure that then allows them to thrive and make money in the drug business and other. I mean, look, I think to most people, there is a lot of execution videos that get released every day.

There's a lot of violence that happened. There's a lot of targeting of civilians, of killing of civilians. I mean, Mexico, over 100,000 people in Mexico are missing to this day. Mass graves are found in Mexico all the time. There was a famous extermination camp in Jalisco that was found, hundreds of bodies in extermination camp.

That was literally there where they would just dissolve bodies. At some point, even in their mind, where it's justifiable in everything you said, there is an absolute, just an evil component to it. And I just firmly believe that at some element, that's the fundamental problem. And the narco culture, the narco corridos, as you said,

it's a way to whitewash it. It's a way to just say, this is acceptable. And even that aspect to me kind of infuriates me, but it's caused a situation where there's never going to be, unfortunately, as long as this continues,

the political will to change it inside of Mexico is never going to exist. Because it's just been so normalized. And I do believe that some element, we have to call them out for what they are. And yeah, there is an inherently an evil aspect of this.

Does the solution to ending the violent reign of terror in Mexico exist? Is there an endgame that could see a steady decline in the normalized chaos and senseless murder? Can diplomacy bring about a new era of peace for Mexico? A lot of Americans especially who are watching this stuff from afar, they hear about all these different cartel factions, but the main question they have is like, how is this gonna end?

What could put an end to the cartel violence, these constant back and forth territorial disputes that lead to bloodshed? I did a report one time in Mexico City talking to Chilongos about the Corridos band. And I asked them, yo, what do you think about Peso Pluma not being able to perform in TJ? What do you think about stuff like that?

And they're like, listen man, they're just rapping about the material circumstances of life in the North and in some of these more narco-dominated states and communities. And the real solution is for America to legalize and regulate drugs and kind of make it so there is no

illicit group controlling the inflow of drugs like fentanyl, meth, cocaine, and heroin into the US.

There are countries, for example, Portugal, that have decriminalized all drugs. And instead of increasing the number of criminals, the number of cases of AIDS with needles, they have decreased. Because the money that was invested in the prohibition of drugs

is now being invested in rehabilitation centers, hospitals, schools, and all that. The Barrio Salima cartel is a group out of Guanajuato. Extremely violent. I mean, these are guys who will go to a bar full of people. If they suspect the bar is supporting their rivals, which is Jalisco New Generation cartel, they'll shoot it up, do a mass shooting, kill everybody, and they'll record it on their phones and upload it. They're not major drug pushers.

The key way they make money is oil smuggling in the Guanajuato. Their symbol is a red triangle because it's called like the Bermuda Triangle in Guanajuato because that's where all the oil and the pipelines kind of work. They push trucks, but that's not their key things of how they make money. They have an alliance with Scorpion Group

and the Mayito Flacos of the Sinaloa cartel, but they don't make money necessarily through drug trafficking, but they're extremely violent When we're talking about Mexican cartels, I think the problem we run into, there's a U.S. problem set of how we analyze this, and then there's a Mexican problem set of how we analyze it. And unfortunately, I think we conflate the two and mix them two. Because from the U.S. perspective, you're right, it's drugs.

How do we stop drugs from coming over to the U.S.? Specifically, fentanyl, because the fentanyl and the drug overdose. It's more about violence and how can they reduce violence in the country and now sometimes there's an overlap between both for example The Zeta-Cartel is a perfect example where there's an overlap where they're extremely violent and causing problem for Mexicans They're pushing drugs into the United States. We have to go after them and knock them out I think people think like oh my god, they're gonna come in the US and bomb us. It's like, all right Like let's take a step back. That's not necessarily their main focus here in the US. It's not the Sicario, the guys with guns

that go into the US are gonna shoot it up. It's the lawyers, it's the money laundering business, the cash business. That's what they do mostly in the United States.

So there's no guys like the Salamanca Twins of Breaking Bad or Javier Bardem's character in No Country for Old Men

who are roving the borderlands looking to assassinate cartel members. I mean, okay, do those exist? Sure. Really? Yeah. Fuck, that sucks. But I think everybody thinks that's what they do here. And it's like, okay, wait, wait, wait, that's like a minority, a small, a small circle. Like, I've tracked cartel members in the U.S. with kind of guns and they do their shit, right?

Got it. You're making generating billions of dollars in drugs every month, let's say or every year, but you want to put it in the financial sector. You think you can do it with a guy who are sicarios with guns? Or do you need a law office, a cash business and professionals that know or the guys with like the glasses and the accountants who know how to make money laundering money go through like

the movie The Accountants. But in other cases, let's look at Durango. So Durango, for example, one of the states in Mexico, is actually one of the safest states in Mexico. And the reason why is because there's basically one cartel that controls the entire state, is Los Cabreras, which is a part of the Mayito Fracos

of the Sinal one cartel that controls it. And so, the Mexican government perspective, especially the Durango perspective, like, this is fine. We don't want to be Sinaloa where there's a Sinaloa cartel civil war. And this argument of the drug flow and all that, if you regulate violence goes down, it's not an illicit economy, it's just not backed up by data, unfortunately. That's an CDN, the Gulf Cartel, even the two factions of Gulf Cartel in the Civil War, the Juarez Cartel, and the Adriano Felix Organization, the Tijuana Cartel, they don't control the drug production area. They just control the areas where smuggling happens. If these cartels in Michoacán, for example, fight for avocados and lime,

and there's a huge problem in Michoacán because of avocado and lime trafficking into the United States, that's legal, but that gets smuggled into the United States where all these other groups are involved with. It's the same with human smuggling. I think it's an idea of trying to analyze a domestic problem set of drug addiction to the United States that requires a very fundamental conversation.

But I think people then say, well, this will also solve drug cartels. And unfortunately, when we look at the data and what they're involved in, that's just not true. If they, again, avocados, it's not illegal to buy avocados and do trade with avocados, but they fight extensively in Michoacan for the avocado trade.

So what could stop them?

One thing I've been doing this for five years, I'm gonna be very pessimistic to tell you, I don't think we can. I'm just gonna be flat out, you know, going to war for control. I think the best case scenario we can look at is maybe Colombia. I say, can we ever end gang violence in the US?

Well, it's reduced a lot since the 90s.

And I think that's the best case scenario we might be looking at.

A reduction in the magnitude.

Correct.

Menchel's official death certificate was published. His body was repatriated to the family. There's a lot that I don't know that I was unable to uncover, and I'm sure that a lot of you are probably going to be left with the same questions on myself. It seems as though this narco war will never be over.

There is no end in sight. But thank you guys so much for tuning in in this collaboration between Canal Cinco Latinoamerica and Borderland Dispatches and our unclad original, but there's truly Katerina Schultz.

How do you feel about these things? When there's such big news happening in your community?

Well, I think everyone perceives it, but it's only for the moment.

It usually happens.

Channel 5 live on everyone, Hollywood in the name!

Damn authority, Channel 5 News.

Channel 5, no, shit, you cowards.

And five is the best number. Next question. Canal Cinco Noticias. Canal Cinco, no! Mierda con cobardes. Y cinco es el mejor número.

Próxima pregunta.

Alright, last thing I'm gonna say is if you guys enjoyed that documentary, I have great news for you. Our entire hour and a half uncut conversation with Stefano Rittendale, the cartel expert, is now live as a part of our five cast podcast on almost every podcast platform in the world. Amazon, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Megaphone, and so many other spots. So if you want to listen to the full, uncut conversation between us, just look up 5CAST, all caps 5-C-A-S-T, and you'll see a beautiful autumn forest with our logo emblazoned on top of the trees. That's our show. If

you want to give it a listen, if you're driving a truck across America and want you want to give it a listen, if you're driving a truck across America and want some good entertainment, check it out. Alright.