The death of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, the leader of the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), on February 22 was immediately framed as the fall of a narco kingpin. Images of gun battles, torched vehicles and retaliatory violence dominated headlines. Commentators spoke of a power vacuum, of fragmentation, of the possible weakening of one of Mexico’s biggest cartels.
It was presented as the removal of a singular, hyper-violent male figure at the apex of a criminal empire. But this framing tells us more about how we imagine organised crime than about how it actually works.
