Lessons learned from Pablo Escobar to the fall of El Mencho

Historical dimensions aside, the fall of the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, “El Mencho,” represents for Mexico what the killing of Pablo Escobar meant for Colombia on December 2, 1993.

That Thursday, we not only neutralized the most feared boss of the Medellín cartel and the most wanted drug trafficker in the world, whose criminal actions took the lives of more than 5,000 Colombians, including 550 brave police officers and also political leaders such as presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento, dozens of journalists, and particularly judges and magistrates who were incorruptible at the time.

The actions of the Colombian government and society as a whole, with the death of Escobar, changed the equation in favor of the state and thus reached a turning point in the fight against drug trafficking within the framework of an accumulation of projections that predicted that Colombia would move toward becoming a failed state.

The death of the drug lord represented a new dawn for the country and the consolidation of an innovative strategy to dismantle, one by one, the other cartels in record time, which at that time had transformed into transnational criminal structures that shared the cocaine production and trafficking chain with the Mexican organizations.

The lessons learned from success and failure surrounding the Medellín cartel allowed for an effective acceleration of operations to imprison the kingpins of the Cali and North Valley cartels, who, for more than 30 years, jeopardized even the stability and legitimacy of the state and the very survival of Colombian society.

This disruption was achieved by the institutions thanks to a series of decisions that offer valuable lessons, such as the decisive and unanimous political will to confront the phenomenon head-on, the unprecedented purging of the National Police ranks, the creation of a Search Bloc with the exclusive mission of pursuing the cartels, the modernization of intelligence services, the increased capacity to improve results in criminal investigations, the use of emerging technology, inter-institutional cooperation, and, very importantly, a model of international cooperation, not to mention the citizen support that was expressed, in many cases, by offering crucial information to capture the criminals.

It is worth highlighting throughout this still unfinished history of the fight against criminal organizations what the change in the operational model introduced in 2006 meant when Juan Manuel Santos was minister of defense under then-President Álvaro Uribe.

The change essentially consisted of ensuring operational interaction between intelligence services and specialized operational units, under a model of compartmentalized bubbles that would be responsible for bringing high-value criminal targets to justice, thereby overcoming mistrust within institutions, ensuring operational transparency, and determining specific responsibilities to achieve the goals set in the security policy.

The combination of these factors ultimately shattered the myth of the untouchable and indestructible drug lord and set the roadmap that later allowed us to disrupt the fight against other organizations, such as the FARC guerrillas, especially through the capture or killing of high-value targets, ultimately creating the necessary conditions to initiate a negotiated solution to the armed conflict. This persistent effort led the country to end the armed confrontation with the oldest and most powerful guerrilla group on the continent, which, starting in 2016, laid down its weapons and began a reintegration process for more than 14,000 former combatants.

The lessons learned allow the Colombian Military and Police Forces to be leaders in the fight against the global scourge of drug trafficking because even today, amid the growth of organized crime groups that, within the framework of the current government’s so-called “Total Peace” policy, have taken advantage of this to multiply their territorial expansion and increase the number of their members, the authorities seize a minimum of two tons of cocaine a day, dismantle 10 laboratories for the processing of cocaine hydrochloride every 24 hours and capture an extraditable person every 30 hours.

Just as Colombia offers lessons in success, it is also worth mentioning the lessons learned from failure, which can be summarized by stating that, in the face of organized crime, appeasement policies are highly counterproductive, as can be concluded from the results of the previous six-year term in Mexico, which, based on its “hugs not bullets” policy, led to the cartels strengthening in members, weapons, and territorial presence, thus directly challenging democratic governance and Mexican institutions.

In the Colombian case, it is also undeniable that any attempt to advance socio-legal negotiations with organized crime to bring it to justice is impossible without the persistent and systematic judicial, police, and military pursuit of criminal structures. Simply put, any peace and security policy must maintain a balance between the stick and the carrot. Furthermore, given the criminal organizations’ ambition to exert criminal governance by controlling territory, imposing rules of conduct on citizens, co-opting local authorities through intimidation or corruption, and protecting their sources of illicit income, the state and its institutions must not only establish a presence through the security forces, but also achieve a truly comprehensive and transformative approach that changes the lives of vulnerable communities.

Currently, Colombia’s main challenge should be dismantling the Gulf Clan, referred to as the CJNG’s main ally in the region, and that means, in light of the current situation, with the death of El Mencho, assessing what impact this will have on the drug market in Colombia and on the functional relationship of the Gulf Clan, which is currently engaged in negotiations with the Colombian government.

The extraordinary blow that Mexican authorities have dealt with the death of El Mencho is a golden opportunity for the rule of law to consolidate its presence in the territories influenced by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and to take advantage of the uncertainty and power vacuum to continue striking at all levels of this drug trafficking structure.

The challenges are immense: it is not simply a challenge for Mexico, but for all of Latin America, which is seriously affected today by the transnational nature of crime and the increase in violence.

Therefore, aware that crime knows no borders, the invitation is to combine capabilities at a global level to structure comprehensive transnational strategies, based on mutual trust, sharing information in real time and breaking down the ideological walls that have been built around public security policies, which, from one political side, invoke the extreme use of force and a heavy hand and, from the opposite view, wield the argument that as long as there is poverty and inequality there will be violence and crime.

Overcoming this antagonistic view is more necessary than ever today, because what is imperative is to create a common Latin American front under the premise that security is a public good and a citizen’s right that is at the core of strengthening democracy and prosperity.

Confronting organized crime structures is no longer just a priority to dismantle drug cartels, but an urgent necessity to protect democratic governance.

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