Mexican security forces have arrested a senior leader of the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
Audias Flores Silva, also known as “El Jardinero” or “The Gardener”, was found hiding in a drainage ditch after 500 members of the security forces closed in on him in the western state of Nayarit on Monday.
Officials said that Flores, 45, was the right-hand man of Mexico’s most-wanted man, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, who died two months ago as a result of injuries sustained during a clash with soldiers deployed to arrest him.
Flores was among a number of senior figures in the CJNG tipped to succeed El Mencho as the cartel’s top leader.
Security Secretary Omar GarcÃa Harfuch announced Flores’s capture on social media and praised “the women and men of Mexico’s Navy for their bravery, discipline and dedication in this operation”.
A video shared by the navy showed helicopters hovering above a cabin and armed officers closing in on a large cement drainage pipe from which Flores’s legs can be seen protruding.
Unlike El Mencho, who died from wounds sustained during the gun battle which preceded his arrest, Flores did not put up a fight.
The US state department had offered a $5m-reward for information leading to Flores’s capture and the US ambassador to Mexico described his arrest as “an important step”.
“Actions like this strengthen security and help dismantle criminal networks that threaten our communities,” Ronald Johnson wrote on X.
Flores’s arrest will be seen as a win for the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has come under pressure from President Donald Trump to do more to combat the powerful criminal organisations which smuggle drugs from Mexico to the US.
Sheinbaum’s security cabinet said it had deployed extra forces to the area to prevent a repeat of the wave of violence which swept through eight states when El Mencho was killed.
Officials said cartel members had set six vehicles and six businesses on fire in retaliation for Flores’s arrests but Nayarit’s governor insisted there were no road blocks and that the situation was “calm”.
