'New' El Chapo's Mexican drug cartel makes Australia their top target as they look to crack into the lucrative ice market with the help of bikie gangs
By Adam McCleery
Daily Mail
October 26, 2018
After the arrest of the notorious cartel leader Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán, a new narco is poised to take up the void in the drug market - and he has his sights set on Australia.
The next generation of narco on the rise in Mexico is former policeman, Ruben Nemesio Oseguera 'El Mencho' Cervantes, one of the founders of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, News Corp reported.
The Australian Federal Police have honed in on the new narco, who they allege has targeted the Australian drug market.
'Mexico has been a weakness for us in the past as we didn't have a presence there but since (October 2017) last year that changed when we opened up a post there as we saw what was happening,' a senior AFP law enforcer said.
It's believed at the height of El Chapo's Sinaloa cartel's stranglehold on the drug trade, he had control of at least 60 per cent of the Australian market.
El Chapo left behind a void upon his re-arrest and subsequent extradition to the United States, which has already filled.
AFP officials believe El Mencho could be responsible for as much as 75 per cent of all meth being trafficked into Australia.
Now Colombian, Mexican and Australian authorities are working together to prevent El Mencho from gaining a stronger foothold.
'The comprehensive counter drug strategy has three pillars, harm reduction, supply reduction and demand reduction. Law enforcement is about supply reduction … that's what we are responding to and working closely with overseas authorities, like in Mexico with the Mexican Federal Police,' the AFP spokesman said.
'It's complex. For us critically it's about sharing intelligence on the organised crime level to disrupt their criminal activities and that's already paying off.'
Australia presents an opportunity to the cartel because it is the second highest user of methamphetamine in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) world.
Australia is also one of the highest users of cocaine per capita.
DEA and Mexican drug authorities said the rapid rise of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel was partly because of the drug trade in Australia.
Despite this they said they were still shocked at how quickly El Mencho and his cartel were able to consolidate power, already building up a $20billion drug empire.
They also theorise that while US and Mexican authorities targeted El Chapo, El Mencho was able to move toward trafficking drugs into Australia while under the radar.
In 2017 and 2018 alone, seizures of meth in Australia have tripled from previous years, with 3762kg seized in the last year.
Authorities will continue to hunt El Mencho and his cartel, however his exact location is not known. It is believed he is holed up in the Mexican mountains of Michoacan.
As a former police officer El Mencho knew the value of getting law enforcement on side and Mexican authorities allege he managed to bribe a number of officers and justice officials.
The United States is currently offering a US$10million reward for his capture.
While Mexican authorities are offering MXN$30 million for any information that would lead to his capture.
And in 2015 the United States Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control added El Mencho to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, or 'Kingpin Act'.
A White House statement outlined the 'Kingpin Act' as an effective tool against cartel leaders.
'Its purpose is to deny significant foreign narcotics traffickers, their related businesses, and their operatives access to the U.S. financial system and to prohibit all trade and transactions between the traffickers and U.S. companies and individuals,' the statement read.
'The Kingpin Act authorizes the President to take these actions when he determines that a foreign person plays a significant role in international narcotics trafficking.'
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