BAD HOMBRES: Federal Agents Arrest Over 600 Members of Mexican Cartel

On March 11, 2020, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced that over 600 arrests were made against members of Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG).

The campaign conducted against this cartel was called “Project Python.”

Per the DEA’s report, federal law enforcement officials have been monitoring the activities of the accused during the last six months.

The operation involved over 600 arrests nationwide, 350 indictments, and “significant seizures of money and drugs,” according to the agencies’ accounts of the operation.

“Project Python marks the most comprehensive action to date in the Department of Justice’s campaign to disrupt, dismantle, and ultimately destroy CJNG,” Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski declared in a statement.

Benczkowski alluded to an executive order President Trump signed off on shortly after Trump was inaugurated in 2017. The order condemned cartel operations in America and instructed federal law enforcement to use the Threat Mitigation Working Group, which the Obama administration enacted in 2011.

“When President Trump signed an Executive Order prioritizing the dismantlement of transnational criminal organizations, the Department of Justice answered the call and took direct aim at CJNG. We deemed CJNG one of the highest-priority transnational organized crime threats we face,” he declared. “And with Project Python, we are delivering results in the face of that threat for the American people.”

According to the DOJ, CJNG has a presence in major American cities such as Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Houston and Atlanta.

The DOJ and DEA also announced an indictment the same day on charges of alleged continuing criminal enterprise against Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, better known as “El Mencho,” the CJNG kingpin.

In the previous month, Oseguera Cervantes’s son was extradited from Mexico to the U.S. on drug trafficking charges. Two weeks ago, on February 26, 2020, federal authorities arrested his daughter for financial crimes.

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