CJNG Cartel Boss El Mencho’s Bitter Enemy Was Just Arrested in Mexico

MEXICO CITY — Mexico just arrested the co-founder of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG for its Spanish acronym), who later broke away from the group, and reportedly founded a rival cartel to wage war against them.

Erick Valencia Salazar, known as El 85, was detained by the Mexican authorities early Monday morning, although the arrest wasn’t announced until later that evening. Valencia Salazar allegedly ran the New Plaza Cartel, a splinter group of the CJNG primarily based in Jalisco, and was one of the most wanted fugitives in Mexico. Authorities discovered Valencia Salazar in the town of Tapalpa, Jalisco, along with two associates, weapons, and approximately 1,000 fentanyl pills and 750 grams of methamphetamine.

The U.S. State Department placed a $5 million bounty for information leading to his capture in 2017 and is believed to be seeking extradition. Valencia Salazar’s criminal career began around 2003, according to the U.S. indictment against him.

Valencia Salazar was allegedly a member of the now-defunct Milenio Cartel. After a series of high-profile captures and deaths, the Milenio Cartel fractured into smaller groups around 2010, including one headed by Valencia Salazar and current CJNG leader, Nemesio Oseguera, alias El Mencho. The group would eventually take on the Jalisco New Generation Cartel moniker and waged war against various cartels for control of the region.

In 2012, authorities arrested Valencia Salazar in the Jalisco state capital of Guadalajara. Mexican authorities at the time alleged that he was involved in the massacre of 35 members of the rival Zetas Cartel whose bodies were left in two trucks below an underpass the year prior.

The arrest sparked one of the most dramatic days in Guadalajara’s history. Cartel enforcers hijacked dozens of vehicles, buses, and trucks, then set them on fire around the city to create roadblocks, in a failed attempt to rescue Valencia Salazar. The CJNG later left banners around the city “asking for forgiveness” and that it was “just a reaction for messing with a colleague from the CJNG, who are only dedicated to working on our business, caring for and maintaining the tranquility of the state of Jalisco.”

Valencia Salazar went on to serve five years in a Mexican prison before controversially being released on a technicality in December 2017. While he was behind bars, the CJNG under El Mencho’s stewardship went on to become arguably one of the most powerful Mexican drug cartels on the planet, alongside the rival Sinaloa Cartel.

It’s unclear exactly why Valencia Salazar split from the CJNG, but a popular rumor commonly repeated in Mexican press is that his former partner, El Mencho, was actually the one responsible for his 2012 arrest. VICE News could not independently verify that theory.

But what is certain, is that Valencia Salazar’s release in 2017 led to one of the bloodiest periods in Jalisco’s history. 

In 2018, the New Plaza Cartel appeared primarily in Guadalajara, allegedly headed by Valencia Salazar and another former CJNG operative named Enrique Sánchez Martínez, alias El Cholo.

Over the following two years, a series of torture houses and mass graves were discovered in Guadalajara that were reportedly connected to the war between the CJNG and the New Plaza. In 2019, authorities discovered two grave sites close to each other allegedly operated by the New Plaza, one with the remains of roughly 50 people and the second with over 100. In 2020, authorities discovered a separate site allegedly used by the CJNG with the remains of 131 bodies—the most in Jalisco state history. Between 2018 and 2020, Jalisco accounted for over 20 percent of all disappearances in Mexico.

While the CJNG now exists in the majority of Mexican states and in the U.S., the New Plaza has a much smaller presence, mostly just within Jalisco and a few surrounding states. The group suffered a major blow in March 2021 when the New Plaza co-founder, El Cholo, was kidnapped, tortured and murdered, reportedly by members of the CJNG. His body was later left in a park in Guadalajara with a sign calling him a “traitor.” 

With Valencia Salazar most likely heading to a U.S. prison soon, it’s unclear who will pick up the pieces of the decimated New Plaza Cartel.

The arrest of Valencia Salazar is another big win for Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He received an onslaught of criticism his first few years in office for a lack of high profile arrests of drug cartel bosses. But in recent months, several prominent captures, like Rafael Caro Quintero and Valencia Salazar, have begun to shift the narrative.