HomeNewsAnalysisEl Mencho's Hospital Rare Example of Infrastructure Built by Mexico Cartels
ANALYSIS

El Mencho's Hospital Rare Example of Infrastructure Built by Mexico Cartels

COVID AND CRIME / 30 JUL 2020 BY ZACHARY GOODWIN AND CHRIS DALBY EN

Reports that the head of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation constructed a hospital, both for himself and local residents, is a concrete example of Mexico's criminal groups investing in real infrastructure to garner the support of local communities.

On July 27, El Universal reported that Mexican authorities had located a hospital in the Jalisco state community of El Alcíhuatl allegedly built by Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG) boss Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho."

The hospital was primarily constructed so that Oseguera Cervantes, who is believed to suffer from kidney disease, could receive treatment without putting himself at risk of capture by authorities. However, local residents and members of El Mencho’s security team are reportedly also allowed to use the hospital’s services.

SEE ALSO: Jalisco Cartel News and Profile

The CJNG has consistently made headlines this summer with several unprecedented displays of force.

The Mexican government has accused them of carrying out the June 26 assassination attempt against Omar García Harfuch, Mexico City’s public security secretary, which killed two bodyguards and a passerby.

Then, in mid-July, a video surfaced of an apparently massive CJNG convoy of armored vehicles, featuring at least 80 men carrying 75 high-powered weapons, according to El Universal. In the video, the cartel members can be heard shouting their declarations of loyalty to El Mencho.

As InSight Crime reported in an extensive profile of the CJNG in June, the cartel still struggles to consolidate power in several key locations, including northern Mexico, Tierra Caliente and the Mexico City area.

InSight Crime Analysis

There have been a number of historic examples of criminal groups in Mexico providing essential goods to local communities, especially during the recent coronavirus pandemic. But building actual infrastructure such as schools or hospitals is rarer, while not unknown.

Those which have done so usually acted to fulfill specific community needs.

"La Familia Michoacana and the Knights Templar built a number of schools which were needed in Tierra Caliente, Guerrero," Oscar Balderas, a Mexican journalist specialized in organized crime, told InSight Crime.

"And in the eastern state of Veracruz, orange growers had long asked the government to build better roads so they could sell their produce more easily. The government never did, so the Zetas built a lot of the roads which connect Veracruz and Tamaulipas, especially between Tuxpan and Tampico," he added.

Former Sinaloa Cartel leader, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias "El Chapo," cultivated a reputation as a celebrity, especially among rural communities in Sinaloa. But in a 2015 investigation, the Associated Press could not find any physical infrastructure built by Guzmán Loera for the benefit of local communities in Sinaloa.

“I don’t see a single building producing jobs, a single piece of public works, a soccer field, a sewer, a school, water systems, a clinic or hospital, not a single one that you can say was built by drug traffickers or their money,” Mario Valenzuela, then-mayor of Badiraguato, where El Chapo was born, told the press agency.

Instead, his celebrity status appears to be more based on his prestige as a drug trafficker and his repeated prison escapes.

"Why do people admire him [El Chapo]? Because he's a living legend. He's like Al Capone, like Lucky Luciano, like Tony Soprano, like Scarface. He's like a television character, except he's alive, he's real," Adrián Cabrera, a journalist in Culiacán, Sinaloa, told Milenio.

SEE ALSO: Mexico News and Profile

Despite the CJNG's penchant for high-profile acts, El Mencho has not sought such a cult of personality. Even before he became one of the most-wanted criminals in Mexico and the United States, Oseguera Cervantes almost never appeared in public.

It is no surprise he chose to build his hospital in El Alcíhuatl, a town in the middle of the CJNG's heartland and where he clearly feels safe. This is despite the fact that the hospital is located just 50 kilometers from Villa Purificación, a major CJNG stronghold where members shot down a Mexican military helicopter in 2015 during a failed attempt to capture El Mencho.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

HOMICIDES / 17 NOV 2022

Hidalgo, Mexico faces a rise in violence connected to a parallel increase in oil theft.

BRAZIL / 23 NOV 2022

A lack of regulation surrounding how crypto-currencies are used by organized crime has left Latin America dangerously exposed.

CHAPITOS / 9 AUG 2022

Little clarity has followed the brazen assassination of a local police chief in northern Mexico.

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…