The Sun
WHEN police found a body wrapped in plastic on a park bench with kitchen knives plunged into its chest, they originally thought it was a mannequin – but they now believe its the mangled remains of one of the biggest gangsters in Mexico.
Carlos Enrique Sánchez, known as El Cholo, is believed to be the latest gruesome hit by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), whose ruthless rise to global dominance has left an appalling history of bodies and screams in its wake — ripping out victims’ hearts, dissolving their bodies in barrels of acid, and even targeting pregnant women.
The knives stabbed into the corpse fixed boards with messages to the body, one of which read “the traitor” in Spanish, Vice reports.
Sánchez was once a top lieutenant in the CJNG, but split to form his own cartel called La Nueva Plaza in 2017.
A bloody war has since erupted between the rival groups over control of drugs markets, adding to the cartel conflagration that’s tormented Mexico for years.
Founded in 2009, the CJNG is now considered the most dangerous and powerful cartel in Mexico.
Its drug trafficking empire now reaches all corners of the globe, despite ferocious competition from other cartels in Mexico and increasingly desperate efforts from international authorities to hold back the blood-dimmed tide.
The US’ Drug Enforcement Administration is even offering a $10,000,000 reward for information that leads to the capture of the CJNG’s leader, El Mencho, which is the highest reward of its kind ever offered.
But nothing appears to be slowing the cancer-like growth of the heavily armed cartel — which is responsible for untold Mexican massacres and has even seen the military targeted.
Born with a truck-full of dead rivals
The CJNG started when an older cartel splintered at the end of 2000s and a vicious battle broke out between rival factions to fill the power vacuum.
El Mencho, who had once been loyal to the Sinaloa Cartel led by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, decided to seize the moment.
An unlikely cartel boss, El Mencho was born into a poor family who grew avocados — he dropped out of primary school to work in the fields.
After a stint as a drug dealer living illegally in America, he even joined the police in the Mexican state of Jalisco before switching sides to begin his meteoric rise through cartel ranks.
The formation of El Mencho’s new group was announced to the world in a hyper-violent public display — with grisly spectacles eventually becoming the group’s trademark, which have included multiple incidents of hanging decapitated bodies from bridges.
In June 2009, an abandoned truck was found in a residential neighbourhood of the popular tourist city of Cancún.
Inside, the bodies of three men were found handcuffed with plastic bags taped on their heads, along with a note: “We are the new group Mata Zetas (Zeta Killers) and we are against kidnapping and extortion, and we will fight them in all states for a cleaner Mexico.”
The Zetas are a rival cartel who El Mencho waged war on — even though they were a much more powerful organisation at the time.
Since then, it’s now estimated that the CJNG holds $50billion in assets and has become the most powerful cartel in Mexico.
Staggering bloodshed
After declaring war on the Zetas and other rivals — including old masters in El Chapo’s Sinaloa Cartel — the CJNG began a hostile takeover of Mexico’s drug industry.
And the hostility has been unimaginable.
In 2011, in the state of Veracruz, two trucks were found at an underpass containing the bodies of what were first thought to be 35 members of the Zetas, their hands bound and showing signs they’d been tortured.
Balaclava-clad members of the CJNG released a video claiming responsibility for the killings — it later emerged that the victims had no connection to organised crime whatsoever.
More massacres broke out in the following days and, within 18 days, 100 people had been murdered in Veracruz alone.
As a response, the Zetas carried out horrific reprisal killings, handcuffing and burning 16 people to death in Sinaloa in 2011.
Since then, it’s been all out war — including with the Mexican Army.
In 2015, members of the CJNG shot down an army helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade in Jalisco — six soldiers were killed.
The unprecedented military-style attack came on the same day that the cartel killed another nine people in the state.
CJNG thugs burned banks and torched petrol stations while using flaming vehicles to block roads during the chaos, which was carried out in response to a police operation targeting the cartel.
When members were arrested for the helicopter killings in 2018, authorities found the group had a Barrett .50 calibre rifle, which can disable aircraft with a single shot, along with stolen cars modified to be fitted with machine guns.
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