Mexican federal forces have arrested one in every of the alleged commanders of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), Audias Flores Silva, who was thought-about a potential successor to Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, the CJNG chief who died after a army operation to seize him in February.
At the time of his seize, Flores Silva – aka El Jardinero (“The Gardener”) – had an arrest warrant towards him in Mexico and was needed by the United States for drug-related crimes.
NCS has contacted the Attorney General’s Office of Mexico to discover out the particulars of the present cost towards him and whether or not he has authorized illustration.
The arrest – which came about alongside the detention of one other suspected CJNG operative, often known as El Güero Conta – comes at a delicate second for Mexico. The nation is going through questions about safety forward of the World Cup and US stress to take harder motion towards cartels.
Mexican safety forces surrounded a cabin in the Nayarit neighborhood of El Mirador – about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the vacationer metropolis of Puerto Vallarta, in the neighboring state of Jalisco – the place Flores Silva was being protected by a safety element made up of round 30 vans and greater than 60 armed males, in accordance to the Mexican Navy.
Possible successor to ‘El Mencho’ arrested
Audias Flores Silva or “El Jardinero,” a high commander in the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and a potential successor to “El Mencho,” was arrested by Mexican Navy particular forces, officers say.
Flores Silva’s bodyguards dispersed as a diversionary tactic, however he was discovered whereas making an attempt to disguise in a drainage pipe.
“The operation was carried out surgically, without the need to fire a single shot, with no deaths, injuries, or collateral damage,” the Navy stated.
Videos shared on social media by Mexican Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch present aerial pictures of the arrest, with helicopters flying over the space throughout the deployment.
The Mexican Navy indicated that the operation was the results of 19 months of surveillance and concerned greater than 500 personnel, six helicopters, and intelligence and reconnaissance plane.
Raymundo Pedro Morales Ángeles, Mexico’s Secretary of the Navy, stated the operation started in October 2024, “when the Mexican Navy activated intelligence efforts focused on a priority target (Flores Silva) linked to one of the country’s main criminal organizations (the CJNG). From that moment on, a discreet and sustained systematic follow-up was carried out, based on field intelligence, intelligence gathering, and international cooperation.”
After greater than a yr and a half of study and preparation work, Mexican authorities tracked down El Jardinero’s full location, his motion patterns, and with whom he interacted.
“Thanks to this analysis, the precise identification of the target was achieved on April 25, 2026,” Morales Ángeles acknowledged. Two days later, federal forces arrested Flores Silva, who was turned over to the Attorney General’s Office that very same day.
Audias Flores Silva, also called Gabriel Raigosa Plascencia, had quite a few aliases and in addition to El Jardinero was also called “Commander,” “Bravo 2,” “Audi” and “Boss Killer.”
Born on November 19, 1980, in Michoacán, Mexico, he was as soon as a shut collaborator of El Mencho, who for years was the high chief of the CJNG and one in every of the most needed drug traffickers in the world, in accordance to the US State Department.
Security analysts noticed El Jardinero as a potential successor to the CJNG management after El Mencho died following the army operation in Tapalpa, a city situated about 120 kilometers southwest of Guadalajara, Jalisco. His loss of life unleashed a wave of violence in 20 states of the nation.
Raymundo Pedro Morales Ángeles, Mexico’s Secretary of the Navy, described Flores Silva on Tuesday as “the second in command of the CJNG … one of the most trusted men (of El Mencho).”
After El Mencho’s loss of life, El Jardinero mobilized “personnel, weapons and resources with the aim of taking over the power of the criminal organization,” Morales Ángeles stated.
Since then, the CJNG, one in every of the nation’s most violent felony organizations, has been present process a reshuffle to discover a new chief. According to the web site InSight Crime, different potential successors to El Mencho inside the cartel’s construction embody Juan Carlos Valencia González (alias “El 03”), and Ricardo Ruiz Velasco (alias “Doble R”).
García Harfuch added that there are “three or four people who are or were second in command to El Mencho, and this one (Flores Silva) was one of them. So, it’s not that he was second in command over the others, he is one of the other commanders who are in charge of the Jalisco cartel.”
“He is a highly relevant criminal operator who, for more than two decades, consolidated a regional structure with the capacity to coordinate the production and trafficking of drugs; supervise clandestine methamphetamine laboratories, operate aircraft and airstrips, as well as control logistical routes for the movement of narcotics abroad,” García Harfuch defined.
He stated the community might convey giant portions of medication into the US yearly. It obtained sources by numerous illicit actions together with drug dealing, unlawful advertising of hydrocarbons, kidnapping, murder, arms trafficking, property dispossession and extortion, in accordance to the secretary.
Its extortion community alone prolonged from western to central Mexico, instantly affecting each people and firms concerned in transportation, gasoline and industrial cargo.
“The investigations have identified a structured criminal extortion scheme whereby members of this organization demanded that transport companies report in advance every vehicle entering or traveling along certain routes, providing data on the vehicle, driver, cargo capacity, and final destination. This was followed by the imposition of periodic payments under threat. This scheme aimed to gain territorial control and offer supposed protection in exchange for illegal routes, establishing a regional extortion network that negatively impacted economic activity,” defined García Harfuch.
Probes by the US Drug Enforcement Administration and Homeland Security Investigations confirmed that Flores Silva managed “several methamphetamine labs in central Jalisco and southern Zacatecas,” the State Department wrote in 2021.
“In controlling the movement of illegal drugs for importation to the United States, Flores-Silva oversees the operation of several airplanes and clandestine airstrips for illicit use. In addition, Flores-Silva controls tractor-trailer trucks for transporting cocaine from Central America to Mexico, as well as passenger vehicles to transport various illicit narcotics from Mexico to CJNG’s US distribution cells in California, Texas, Illinois, Georgia, Washington, and Virginia,” the State Department stated.
Also in 2021, the US Treasury Department recognized him as “a significant foreign narcotics trafficker” and pointed to him as one in every of the regional leaders of the CJNG who had management in a number of areas of the Mexican Pacific coast, together with Nayarit, the place he was arrested on Monday.
On Tuesday, DEA Administrator Terrance C. Cole stated that the seize of Flores Silva by the Mexican Navy was “a step toward a fentanyl-free America.”
“He was expected to succeed El Mencho as leader of CJNG, but Law Enforcement had other plans. Results like this make our nations safer,” he stated.
In 2020, Flores Silva was formally charged by a federal court docket in the District of Columbia for conspiracy to distribute medication and for crimes associated to the use of firearms.
For these crimes, the State Department was providing a reward of up to $5 million for data main to his arrest or conviction.
According to the Treasury Department, Flores Silva beforehand served a five-year jail sentence in the United States for drug trafficking.
“After his release, he returned to Mexico. In 2016, Mexican authorities arrested Flores Silva after being accused of orchestrating an April 2015 ambush against Mexican police officers in Soyatlan, Jalisco. Flores Silva was later released from Mexican prison after fighting his charges in Mexican courts,” the Treasury Department defined.