El Mencho pumped fentanyl into American neighborhoods for 15 years and Washington did nothing.
Trump took office, designated his cartel a terrorist organization, and within 13 months the most wanted drug lord on the planet was dead.
Now a veteran who watched this war from the border is warning America not to celebrate too soon – because what comes next could be worse.
How Trump Dismantled the CJNG Fentanyl Network Before the Killing
This didn't happen by accident.
On Day One, Donald Trump signed the executive order designating Mexican drug cartel CJNG a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
That single act unlocked military-grade surveillance, narcoterrorism prosecutions, and Treasury sanctions that previous administrations never touched.
The administration then ripped apart El Mencho's inner circle piece by piece.
His brother was extradited and charged in Washington.
His son – the heir apparent, El Menchito – was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years and ordered to forfeit $6 billion in drug proceeds.
His brother-in-law got 30 years for running CJNG's financial empire.
Three Mexican banks that laundered cartel money were cut off from the U.S. dollar system entirely.
Just 72 hours before the fatal raid, Treasury sanctioned a CJNG-controlled resort in Puerto Vallarta – severing a $300 million revenue stream.
Then the CIA tip came.
Mexican forces stormed a compound in Tapalpa, Jalisco, on February 22.
El Mencho died on the helicopter ride to Mexico City.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the U.S. provided the intelligence that made it happen.
Why Killing the Jalisco Cartel Boss Could Trigger a Worse Fentanyl Crisis
Carlos De La Cruz spent 20 years in the Air Force, deployed after 9/11, and served alongside Customs agents on the southern border.
He called El Mencho's killing a significant win.
Then he said what Washington doesn't want to admit.
"Cartels don't collapse when you just cut the head off – they fracture," De La Cruz told Fox News. "And part of that fracture is going to see a lot of short-term violence while all these factions fight over territory."
He's right – and history proves it.
CJNG itself was born from a fracture.
When Mexican forces killed Sinaloa capo Nacho Coronel in 2010, his affiliated Milenio Cartel split into rival factions – and El Mencho climbed out of that wreckage to build something far more dangerous.
The same thing happened when El Chapo was captured in 2016.
The Sinaloa Cartel split into the Chapitos and the Mayitos – and the civil war between those factions drove violence to levels Sinaloa had never seen.
When El Mayo was arrested in 2024, it got worse.
Every time America and Mexico took out a leader, more emerged to replace him.
Now CJNG faces the same reckoning – with one critical difference.
Unlike the Sinaloa Cartel, which split along family bloodlines, CJNG was a one-man show.
El Mencho ruled it personally, and there is no clear successor.
Powerful commanders – men like El Jardinero and El RR – control separate factions across different territories with no blood ties forcing cooperation.
They don't need each other to survive.
What's coming isn't a clean transition – it's a multi-front war among killers who already proved their reach by torching vehicles and erecting 250 roadblocks across 22 Mexican states within hours of El Mencho's death.
Why Cartel Money Laundering Inside the US Is the Real Fentanyl Fight
De La Cruz identified the second half of the problem.
"We have to continue to go after the money launderers, especially on our side of the border," he said, "because that's the full fight."
CJNG generated billions annually – moving money through shell companies, layered real estate deals, and complicit banks before surfacing it as legitimate revenue.
The Trump administration already hit three of those banks – cutting CIBanco, Intercam, and Vector off from the U.S. dollar system for laundering cartel funds.
All three shut down.
But the financial network doesn't die with El Mencho.
Chinese suppliers are still shipping the precursor chemicals that make fentanyl possible, the labs in Jalisco are still cooking, and CJNG's distribution hubs in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Atlanta didn't disappear because their boss did.
Splinter factions fighting over CJNG's territory won't slow the fentanyl pipeline – every faction will keep it running because it's the revenue source they'll kill to control.
De La Cruz called fentanyl a chemical weapon, and he's not wrong.
CJNG didn't build an empire selling recreational drugs – they built a delivery system targeting American communities, and that infrastructure predates El Mencho and will outlast him unless the United States hunts it with the same pressure that took down the kingpin.
Trump built the tools to do exactly that.
The FTO designation, the JIATF-Counter Cartel task force in Tucson, the Treasury sanctions, the extraditions – all of it remains in place, now pointed at a leaderless organization entering a violent internal war.
The question is whether America maintains that pressure through the chaos or declares victory and walks away.
De La Cruz knows which one wins.
"You don't win a war with just one airstrike," he said.
Sources:
- Stepheny Price, "Air Force veteran warns 'cartels don't collapse — they fracture' after notorious drug lord killed," Fox News, March 8, 2026.
- "Trump's 'total elimination' strategy paved way for fall of cartel kingpin 'El Mencho'," Fox News, February 23, 2026.
- Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Statement on El Mencho Operation, February 22, 2026.
- "Designation of International Cartels," U.S. Department of State, February 20, 2025.
- "Treasury Targets Major Mexican Cartel Involved in Fentanyl Trafficking and Fuel Theft," U.S. Department of the Treasury, May 2025.
- DEA.gov, "Cartels," U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, accessed March 2026.
- "From Trump to Leavitt to Johnson: How US officials responded to El Mencho's killing," Mexico News Daily, February 23, 2026.