The kingpin, the president and the ultimatum

People walking past a burnt car beside a damaged business after the Mexican military killed El Mencho, the leader of one of the world’s largest drug cartels, in Guadalajara, Mexico, in February. — Cesar Rodriguez/The New York Times

EL Mencho was the biggest kingpin left.

The drug lord, whose real name was Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, had evaded capture for two decades, outlasting his rivals El Chapo and El Mayo and building his Jalisco New Generation Cartel into Mexico’s most powerful criminal organisation.