Wilson Center: CJNG Succession Crisis Has Echo Effects Across Latin America

A Wilson Center policy brief examines the broader regional implications of CJNG's leadership transition, noting that El Mencho's death is reverberating across the cartel's cocaine supply chain in Ecuador and Colombia. CJNG's partnerships with local criminal organizations across Latin America — which function as procurement, transit, and export networks — face renegotiation pressure as the new leadership consolidates. Ecuador, which has seen a dramatic surge in cartel-linked violence since 2022, and Colombia's FARC dissident groups are identified as key nodes where realignment is underway. The Wilson Center analysis concludes that Mexico's long-term security requires 'sustained effort to take and hold territory, not just decapitate leadership' — and that the bilateral U.S.-Mexico intelligence framework established around the Tapalpa operation must be institutionalized to prevent regression. The CJNG's war with Sinaloa factions, combined with the Sinaloa internal fracture, is described as a 'bipolar war' reshaping criminal markets from Mexico City to Santiago, Chile.