Oscar Balderas, dear Oscar, thank you
as always for being with us
dear Elisa, good night, sad night
Hey, yes, how chilling, we were talking while we were also listening to this information from our colleague Ángel eh, after learning the story of this man who had survived the attack and who, well, he, he showed himself as someone, who had been lucky to have survived this tremendous, tremendous attack, yes, when Deputy Officer Iván Morales is called on April 30th, which is the same day he is assassinated in 2025, he is assassinated on April 30th, and on April 30th, 2015, he is called on a secret mission because of the profile of the person they were going to arrest.
Neither he nor his other colleagues from the Federal Police knew the target, nor did they even know where they were going in particular. They simply ask that when they are, an elite group is going to execute an arrest warrant against an important
boss of a major criminal organization. Already in the air, almost arriving, over Villa Purificación, Warrant Officer Iván Morales and his other companions learn about a guy who, at that time,
Elis was almost unknown to the country, a certain Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, who they told the guy belonged to an
organization that didn't sound familiar to us as a major national evil: the Jalisco Cartel Nueva Generación 10 years ago
Exactly, that is, on April 30th. They summon him. Don't they tell him, "You have this mission?" He takes off from Mexico City and arrives in Villa Purificación on May 1st.
On May 1st, he is attacked. Here, the Jalisco Cartel completely breaks down and becomes a historic event for several reasons. First, because the person organizing this airstrike, according to official reports, is another criminal of whom we had no record. It was Menchito, the son of Nemesio Oseguera, who, I insist, was also virtually unknown nationally.
In 2015, we discussed the Knights Templar, the Michoacan family, and the Zetas cartel, which became the Northeast Cartel. But there were still people in the Jalisco Cartel, even people who still call them the MataZetas, or who I still mistook for the Millennium Cartel. Then, Menchito, who was only 25 years old at the time, ordered this attack, which completely shattered what we knew about the actions of organized crime. Because, on the one hand, they used First, a .50-caliber weapon publicly to shoot down a federal forces aircraft, and second, a Russian-made rocket launcher.
I was telling you about a criminal organization with significant firepower, and then the attack on an aircraft in which they knew federal police were on board. What we know is that Warrant Officer Iván Morales had received news hours earlier from his partner that he was going to be a father. And when the helicopter crashed, under attack, and he himself narrated it, he felt himself receiving the bullets, seeing how some of his colleagues had already been killed. His uniform was burning with him, which caused these terrible burns that we saw in this image that went viral.
An image where he was decorated in the National Arena with more than a minute of standing ovation, and he said, "At this moment, I'm going to have to make a decision or let myself die here because the pain is Unbearable, and what if I get captured and I'm going to have a worse time, or do I fight to survive because I have a child on the way, and he makes this very brave decision and survives? They decorate him. The state then gave him certain facilities, but what they didn't give him, apparently, was an escort to protect him after he participated in the Menchito trial, who is now serving a life sentence. The story is circular. Elisa, and it's terrible because 2025 becomes a decisive year for the two figures at the extremes of this story.
Menchito is going to life imprisonment with 35 years, or a very harsh prison sentence, and this one, I consider the federal police officer Iván Morales a hero. He is murdered along with his wife. Oh, what a story, exactly 10 years apart, and we've seenThis absolute growth of the power of a cartel in Mexico, right? Like few others, because of course we have in mind the Sinaloa cartel, which is also the root of all the other groups, right? But the growth of the Jalisco Cartel has been like that, right? In power, in capacity, right? And by the way, we were also commenting a moment ago that we've seen a lot of news related to the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, including operations, arrests, all of this, and the issue of the Sinaloa cartel has been put aside, at least in these arrests, in operations.
No, I don't know if that's what you think, Oscar. Has the information been lowered, or is more of this type of data coming in? In general, yes, we started the year with our eyes on what was happening in Culiacán? No, the fight between them, with the attention in May and then all this war that broke out after In September, Chapiza and Miza, and shortly after, we started this year saying the war in Culiacán has been going on for 100 days and it doesn't look like it's going to continue, and suddenly there was very intense pressure on Governor Rubén Rochamoya. There were even rumors that they were already preparing an embassy for him because he wasn't going to last much longer. Now, well, nothing else remains, because he remains in his position. I don't know if governing, yes, let's not say, with the position, with the position, but what happened is that first we got the news about Rancho Izaguirre, the images of the shoes, triggered a popular outrage that, I think, was dormant, and thanks to the power of images, society began to unite around a demand to know what happened at the ranch, whether it was an extermination camp, a training camp. We began to learn about the right-wingers.
Then we moved on to the issue of recruitment. Forced, and then
This infamous concert by Lo Alegres del Barranco comes along, which puts us back in front of narco-culture, and we begin to debate: whether we ban drug trafficking, regulate it, or remove it from public spaces. The Jalisco cartel was once again at the center. Then, for example, today, the United States Treasury Department puts an important leader of the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, El Priito, at the center of a series of financial tensions that are within the context of the Jalisco cartel now being considered a terrorist organization in the United States. So, yes, we have focused heavily on this cartel, whose explosive growth in 10 years has shown that it could have international reach. The latest count is that it has representatives in more than 55 countries around the world, as far away as New Zealand. Imagine how big this criminal group is. And yes, I think we have lost sight of others. That may not be in the national discussion at this moment, but they control the daily lives of millions of people. Exactly. Exactly. And especially there in Culiacán, specifically. Right? Yeah, Sinaloa. Yes, the war is raging there. Reality overwhelms. Yeah. Regardless of all this very relevant news that we're reporting every day, aren't there these stories? And yes, today the murder of this man, this former federal police officer, is confirmed. These images that went around the world, that we're seeing, and it's incredible that after testifying against El Menchito, the son of the leader of the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, he didn't have this total and absolute protection, of course, because, besides, my reflection is that federal police officer Iván Morales, eh?
He could have easily said, "I've already done my service to Mexico." And no one could accuse him of more than fulfilling his promise. When they put the uniform and the badge on him, God gave more than he could give. The scars on his body are a sign of that commitment. And even after he had hung up his uniform, he went to present himself to the United States Attorney's Office. He gave his testimony, knowing the risk, that is, the fulfillment of his duty had already surpassed him. He still found the courage to serve Mexico. Injured in civilian clothes with the least possible protection.
And so, I do believe that after this, Elisa, we will have to reflect on two things: one: are we adequately protecting the witnesses who are about to begin because we still have several trials ahead of us in the United States, and there are many people in Mexico who are sufficiently protected. We have sufficient bodyguards in number and in training to protect them. And second, will she receive a tribute? Will she receive a mention? At least in the morning press conference, his commitment will be honored because it seems to me that as narco-culture advances, yes, of course, in various regions, the culture of honoring our heroes also had to advance, the people who go above and beyond the call of duty and who, from a silent position because we didn't know about the non-commissioned officer for a long time, had a very important role to pacify this country. If you want, let's listen and see the moment when the helicopter was shot down 10 years ago. Isn't this this moment that sowed a very important situation that continues to this day, which had to do with the sentence that the United States received from Menchito for this incident. It was one of the shocking cases that the jury heard in the United States about del Mencho's son, and well, and that also led to the terrible murder that was confirmed today.
That happened last night, that happened 10 years ago. years no survivor of this tremendous attack 10 years ago. Terrible, terrible, the reading that leaves this, that the audience is the one who does the reading, but it does seem to me that it is terrible. Thank you very much, thank you, as always. Good night, good night.
IVAN MORALES
CJNG CARTEL LEADER
