MEXICO CITY (REUTERS) – Mexico is offering a 30 million pesos ($1.56 million) reward for information leading to the arrest of drug lord Nemesio Oseguera whose cartel is blamed for driving heroin shipments to the United States, the attorney general said on Wednesday.
Known as “El Mencho,” Oseguera has risen to become Mexico’s most-wanted drug lord after Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was extradited to the United States last year to face trial.
In March, U.S. agents in Chicago named El Mencho public enemy No. 1 and blamed his gang for using “extreme violence” to expand their share of the heroin trade. The United States is offering $5 million for information leading to his capture.
Oseguera’s Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion is considered by authorities to be the most powerful Mexican drug cartel, with operations in the United States, Latin America, Africa, Europe and Asia.
The Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion “is known to produce multi-hundred kilogram quantities of methamphetamine and heroin, and traffics in multi-ton quantities of cocaine,” according to the U.S. Department of State.
Mexico arrested Oseguera’s wife in May on charges of laundering funds for his cartel.
($1 = 19.1810 Mexican pesos)
(Reporting by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Susan Thomas for REUTERS)
