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Mexico has captured one of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel’s (CJNG) top commanders in a major military operation, taking down a senior figure inside one of the largest drug trafficking networks in the hemisphere.
Getting into it: Audias Flores Silva, known as “El Jardinero” (The Gardener), was arrested Monday by Mexican Navy special forces in El Mirador, Nayarit (about 12 miles north of Puerto Vallarta) without a single shot fired. Naval intelligence had been tracking him for 19 months before the raid, which pulled in roughly 500 troops on the ground, six helicopters, and four fixed-wing aircraft. Flores was traveling with a security detail of over 60 gunmen and 30 pickup trucks, but the moment Mexican forces moved in, the gunmen broke off in different directions to draw attention away from him. Aircraft overhead followed the gunmen and pointed troops to where Flores had taken cover (a ditch off the side of the road).
Flores had been viewed as a likely candidate to take over the cartel after El Mencho, real name Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, was killed by Mexican security forces in February. His arrest triggered immediate cartel retaliation across Nayarit, with vehicle burnings, arson attacks on businesses, and highway blockades. Mexican forces contained the unrest using their “Anti-Blockade Plan.”
In a simultaneous operation in Zapopan, Jalisco, authorities also arrested César “El Güero Conta,” the cartel’s key financial operator, seizing a firearm, 1,000 doses of methamphetamine, and evidence of money laundering through aircraft, boats, ranches, and tequila production companies.
This all comes as US had been offering $5 million for information leading to his arrest, and US prosecutors have wanted him extradited since 2021 on charges tied to drug trafficking and weapons possession.
US Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson called the capture an important step against fentanyl trafficking in a post on X.
