How safe is Mexico? El Mencho is dead; now what? - February 2026
Two different analyses today. Hope you enjoy both.
Yesterday’s newsletter received more interest than normal from people who aren’t regular readers. Hello! Glad to have you here. Most readers of this newsletter are close followers of Latin American politics and security. I’m going to write today’s newsletter in two parts. The first part tries to answer some basic questions I received yesterday about the violence. The second is a more detailed analysis of the cartel situation after El Mencho’s death.
Part 1: How safe is Mexico right now?
Mexico is big. Would you tell your friends not to visit Chicago this year because of wildfires in Colorado? No. Obviously, what happened on Sunday in Mexico was worse than that, but also recognize that Mexico, like the United States, is huge and complicated, with plenty of safe and great places to be.
When you see a map of hundreds of violent incidents in Mexico in one day, it looks really bad, but also recognize that much of the violence was localized and targeted. It was bad for an afternoon in downtown Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta. Now, both of those cities are relatively fine, and everything will reopen in the next few days. Part of everyone’s attention was that the events included very visual violence. The cartels were using arson and blockades to send a message that would spread on social media and create fear. For the average person, it looked far worse than it was.
The cartels are not targeting tourists. Despite what you may have read on social media, the cartels are not hunting down US citizens. That’s just weird, fake propaganda. As far as I’m aware, precisely zero US tourists were killed, kidnapped, or injured in Sunday’s events. One guy had his rental car stolen by the cartels and burned in a blockade. That’s one person out of the hundreds of thousands of US citizens who are visiting Mexico at any given moment.
Mexico has been trending safer in the past year. Homicides are down by more than 10%, and the security situation has improved, even accounting for increased disappearances. Despite what you saw during this week's events, the country is the safest it’s been in a decade.
Still go to Mexico. If your aunt is supposed to attend a business conference in Mexico City or your cousin has booked a beach vacation in Cancun next week, they should still go. Spring break trips should still be on (permanent recommendation: avoid bars after midnight; nothing good happens then).
Parts of Jalisco, including Guadalajara, Lake Chapala, and Puerto Vallarta, may be logistically more complicated for a few days, but are likely still fine to visit in the coming week. Don’t drive the backroads through rural Jalisco right now, something which is generally a good recommendation even on a normal week.
The World Cup will be fine. Seriously. Mexico’s government will professionally handle the World Cup security. I’m jealous of anyone able to attend.
Sign up for travel alerts. The US government has a site to learn about travel warnings and offers STEP alerts for when you’re traveling. It’s a basic thing that will make you safer.
Shelter in place means shelter in place. If something bad happens and you are told to shelter in place, just stay put. Don’t go wander the streets to get interesting footage for your TikTok account. Don’t try to drive 300 miles to a different city to catch an earlier flight (this would be the worst thing you could do right this moment). Unless there is an obvious need to evacuate, hang around the hotel or wherever you are and wait for the bad moment to pass.
Have a plan for a delay. Whether it’s a major cartel incident or a snowstorm back home, you should always consider the scenario that your trip might get delayed for 24-48 hours. Try to enjoy where you are. You’ll have a good story later.
Mexico is great. One of the downsides in writing a newsletter titled the Latin America Risk Report is that I’m always going to cover the negative stuff like cartel violence, corruption, and political turmoil. Those things are important, vital challenges for the future of the region, but they also bias this newsletter toward pessimism. That’s not a position I enjoy during a week in which certain groups are trying to highlight the worst of Mexico for their own political purposes. So, before I analyze below all the negative ways the CJNG violence might worsen in Mexico from my usual wonkish analytical perspective, let me stress that Mexico is awesome. I lived in Mexico City from 2013 to 2016 and have traveled to at least 20 of the states in the country during the past 25 years. Yes, the situation can be complicated, but it’s nowhere near as bad as the images you saw this week suggest. Go and enjoy it.
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Part 2: El Mencho is Dead. Now what?
Now, for the regular readers who are used to my usual doom and gloom, let’s get into the analysis of what happens now that El Mencho has met Santa Muerte.
Imagine three scenarios after a cartel leader’s death:
A leadership succession occurs, and everything stays the same.
The cartel divides, and violence worsens
The cartel is defeated, and the situation becomes more secure.
Scenario C never seems to happen in Mexico. In contrast, you might (but only might) argue that the killing of the FARC leadership in Colombia in the late 2000s or the take down of the Shining Path leadership in Peru in the 1990s made things better, but those were better defined as ideological insurgencies than profit-motivated criminal groups. When the violent gangs are motivated by money, removing the leaders doesn’t change the incentives for them to be violent.
Yesterday’s newsletter said “succession or civil war” within the CJNG leadership would be the key variable for how the cartel and security situations would evolve in the coming year. The other related variable will be how much pressure the Mexican government places on the rest of the CJNG leadership in the coming months. If the government security forces take out more leaders, disintegration and internal cartel conflicts become more likely.
The CJNG succession plans will unfold over several months. Don’t believe the random social media post or narcomanta this week that announces a new leader or a new internal fight. It won’t be the final statement on the matter. There will be a lot of posturing by various cartel sub-leaders, but also a lot of disinformation from rival cartels and others who want to cause problems. Instead of believing the first online comment you see, watch to see how violence plays out in Jalisco and other areas where the CJNG was dominant.
One reason to think that leadership succession is a more likely scenario is that El Mencho likely planned for this event. The Sinaloa Cartel divide occurred in part because one side of the cartel betrayed the other. That’s not what happened in Jalisco this week. Instead, El Mencho and some of his top leadership team were taken out by the government, but other CJNG leaders remained and organized a nationwide response. That signals a more unified cartel than the one in Sinaloa that struggled post-Chapo.
Even if the CJNG divides, it is not likely to worsen the situation in the same way that the Sinaloa Cartel civil war caused a huge spike in violence. Two reasons for that. First, the CJNG leadership split would be simpler geographically. What makes the Mayiza vs Chapito fight in Sinaloa so violent is that they are fighting over much of the same territory, networks, and routes. The CJNG leaders could divide the group’s wide geographic expanse more easily without stepping on each other’s toes as much. The CJNG offshoots in places like Tijuana and Tabasco already operate with some independence and won’t suddenly become territorial rivals. Second, the edges of CJNG territory are already quite violent in terms of their conflicts with other cartels. It’s true that rival cartels like the CSRL in Guanajuato or the remnants of the Knights Templar in Michoacan might view this as a moment to try to move on the CJNG in those states, but that would only be a small expansion of an already hot conflict, not a brand new fight.
What would worsen the violence? One very bad scenario would be the CJNG experiencing an internal split within the state of Jalisco. One of the ugliest moments of the past decade occurred when the CJNG fought against a rival gang called Nueva Plaza in the Guadalajara metro area, an event that led to an enormous spike in homicides and disappearances. Some variation of that internal Jalisco division and fight is a key indicator to monitor. If that happens, expect a spike in violence that would last for several years because that divide would then parallel the Sinaloa internal fight in a critical way.
For that indicator, keep an eye on homicides and disappearances in Jalisco and particularly Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta over the coming 3-6 months. If those numbers go up, it signals a structural change in the cartel that will then spread further geographically through the CJNG’s territory. Also, the CJNG leaders know this. So if they see rivals pop up in their home territory, they will engage in brutal repression to stop it.
One final indicator to monitor will be the CJNG’s international networks. The group coordinates with associated gangs in countries such as Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela. But two countries in particular are vulnerable to violence caused by network disruptions: Costa Rica and Ecuador. Foreign criminal groups may try to seize the moment to take over rival subsidiaries, and local criminal groups may see an opportunity to operate with greater independence and financial freedom. Both scenarios would increase violence in key territories outside of Mexico where the rivalries occur. Somewhat counter-intuitively, it’s possible that CJNG rivals won’t be able to capitalize on El Mencho’s death in Guanajuato, but will be able to in Guayaquil.