MEXICO CITY — The Mexican military on Tuesday arrested the brother of the country’s most wanted drug cartel leader, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, the Mexican Defense Ministry said.
The military said it had captured Antonio Oseguera stockpiling weapons on the outskirts of Guadalajara, the capital of the western state of Jalisco. It says he oversaw acts of violence and logistics, and purchased weapons and laundered money for the violent Jalisco New Generation Cartel, commonly known simply as the Jalisco cartel.
The U.S. Treasury Department lists Antonio Oseguera’s alias as “El Tony Montana”, an apparent reference to the fictional protagonist of the 1983 gangster film “Scarface”.
Antonio Oseguera is on the Treasury Department’s sanctions list for his ties to the gang. However, it is not clear if there is a US extradition order against him.
Authorities had previously arrested El Mencho’s wife on charges of her involvement in the gang’s illegal activities.
The United States has offered a $10 million reward for the capture of El Mencho, but the gang has fiercely fought past attempts to arrest him.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Mexico no longer had a policy of detaining drug lords, but authorities were hunting for top lieutenants of several gangs, including Jalisco.
The Jalisco gang is said to be the strongest and most violent in Mexico. It is famous for its blatant attacks on Mexican security forces, including the 2020 assassination of the Mexico City police chief that injured him and killed three others.
In 2015, gang gunmen shot down a Mexican military helicopter with rocket-propelled grenades.
The gang has ruthlessly expanded its territory beyond Jalisco, causing bloodshed in states including Guanajuato and Michoacan, as well as reaching its tentacles into the Mexican Caribbean beach resorts of Quintana Roo.
The gang’s main business is drug trafficking to the United States, particularly methamphetamine and fentanyl.
