‘El Menchito’ trial offers cautionary tale for drug cartel ‘narco juniors’

The alleged Mexican drug lord known as El Mencho has evaded efforts by U.S. and Mexican officials to bring him to justice for more than a decade. His son, the alleged heir to one of Mexico’s largest criminal empires, has not proven so elusive.

He was captured by Mexican police in 2015, a month after henchmen allegedly operating under his command shot down a military helicopter pursuing him and his father. He is now on trial in Washington on drug trafficking and weapons charges related to his alleged role in the Jalisco New Generation cartel.

Rubén Oseguera González, 34, better known as El Menchito, is part of a generation of “narco juniors” who are finding that the archaic codes of silence and family loyalty that once protected their fathers are increasingly relics of the past. He has had to deal with damning testimony from a host of former cartel members. Even his own uncle is expected to testify against him.

While other sons of other prominent Mexican traffickers have reached settlements — sometimes involving collusion against cartel members — court documents show Oseguera González turned down a deal last year. If convicted, he almost certainly faces life in prison.

The case highlights the generation gap between baby boomer bosses and their millennial counterparts.

The fathers often came from nowhere and rose through the ranks of cartels. Some young men attended private schools and rubbed shoulders with their countries’ future elites. Now, the privileged thirtysomethings are increasingly taking on leadership roles as their fathers—or at least those who weren’t killed or captured—approach retirement.

Descendants don’t have to look far to see that if they are captured and extradited to the US, the choice of trial is an all-or-nothing gamble that rarely results in release.

Exhibit A: Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the longtime leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, is currently serving a life sentence in strict isolation at a remote Colorado prison dubbed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.” Among the more than a dozen former associates who testified against him were two relatives of his longtime partner, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.

Now, five years after El Chapo’s conviction, his two sons seem to want to avoid their father’s fate by any means possible.

Mexican officials say Joaquín Guzmán Lopez, 38, and his brother Ovidio, 34, who was extradited to the U.S. last year, planned to kidnap Zambada to gain leniency in their own cases.

Zambada, who recently made his first court appearance in Brooklyn, New York, and pleaded not guilty to drug charges, has said he was “forcibly abducted” on July 25 when Joaquin personally handed him over to U.S. agents at an airport near El Paso, where both men were arrested.

A lawyer for the brothers denies they are cooperating. Both have pleaded not guilty and remain in custody with cases pending in Chicago and Washington over their alleged leadership of a cartel faction called Los Chapitos.

While El Chapo’s sons await their fate, Oseguera González tries his luck before the jury.

In opening statements last week, Justice Department prosecutor Jonathon Hornok presented seemingly incriminating evidence, including expected testimony from a corrupt police chief who served as El Mencho’s personal bodyguard and others who smuggled drugs for the cartel, the CJNG, as it is known in Spanish.

“They will tell you about the birth of the CJNG, how they saw the suspect’s father found the cartel and how the suspect led the cartel as number 2, together with his father,” Hornok said.

Oseguera González’s attorney responded by telling jurors to be skeptical of key witnesses “making that deal with the government” — an arrangement he called “one of the dark sides of criminal law.”

“It’s a wonderful system, it’s as perfect as it can be, but there are flaws,” said attorney Jan Ronis.

David Weinstein, a former federal narcotics prosecutor in Miami and an observer of the narco-junior cases, compared the wave of betrayals among Mexican cartel members to the hollowing out of Mafia families in New York in the 1990s amid federal racketeering investigations.

He cited the case of Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, an underboss in the Gambino crime family who turned prosecution witness and helped eventually bring murder charges and a life sentence on the “Teflon Don,” John Gotti.

“There are certain people who just don’t want to testify, family is thicker than anything: ‘I’m not going to be a snitch and I’m not going to testify,'” Weinstein said. “Others say, ‘It’s not worth it. Even though it’s family, it’s not worth it.'”

Last year, the chances of Oseguera González reaching an agreement seemed lost when he backed out of a petition at the last minute after changing lawyers.

Court documents show that Oseguera González signed documents admitting he ordered more than 100 murders.

Expected testimony described in pre-trial documents said several victims “drowned in a swimming pool.” Witnesses were also said to say he “personally shot and killed two people — a rival cartel member and a subordinate who disobeyed orders.”

Prosecutors say he oversaw a vast network of drug labs and allegedly purchased weapons and military training from Russian mercenaries.

After Oseguera González canceled the deal and told the judge during a hearing last April, “I just want a second opinion,” prosecutors were barred from using the pleas at trial.

Arturo Hernandez, the lawyer who took on Oseguera González’s defense when he denied the request, said his client signed the documents without a Spanish interpreter present.

“That was absolutely illegal,” said Hernandez, who is not part of the defense team. He added that he believed the plea documents made public before the trial “poisoned the jury pool” and would create an appeals issue if Oseguera González is found guilty.

Other alleged activities by Oseguera González included stealing fuel from pipelines in Mexico, which was resold and used to “pay CJNG hitmen to buy weapons, methamphetamine production equipment and stolen cars” for the cartel, a court document said.

Prosecutors have said one witness will testify that Oseguera González bragged about amassing an “arsenal” that included .50-caliber sniper rifles, 40-millimeter automatic grenade launchers and shoulder-fired rocket launchers. They also allege that he “brokered and authorized the purchase of weapons from a Russian with a military background, who also provided weapons training to the CJNG.”

Thousands of Blackberry Messenger messages obtained through wiretaps reportedly show that Oseguera González conducted cartel business under names including “Forrest Gump,” “Ice Man” and “Billy the Kid.”

In a message intercepted in October 2013, Oseguera González agreed to release a kidnapped chemist so he could produce oxycodone, a synthetic opioid often laced with fentanyl in counterfeit prescription pills, prosecutors said.

“I’m going to release him, brother,” the message read. “I’m just going to make a deal with him so he cooperates with me.”

A bullet-riddled wall with the initials of the criminal group Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion at the entrance to the community of Aguililla, in the state of Michoacan, Mexico, on April 23, 2021.

(Enrique Castro/AFP via Getty Images)

The US Drug Enforcement Administration, which has said the CJNG “has a presence in dozens of countries around the world and all 50 US states,” is offering a $10 million reward for the arrest of 58-year-old Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes – El Mencho.

Eduardo Balarezo, a lawyer who worked on El Chapo’s defense team and has been following the recent cases, said lawyers can’t do everything when a client pushes for a trial when there are already staff members willing to testify.

“You can tell him what you think and give him your best advice, but sometimes they don’t listen to you and that creates a problem,” he said.

“They’re going to try his father through him, basically,” Balarezo said. “And he’s going to be completely destroyed. I can’t imagine they’re going to do a better job than Chapo, honestly.”