Mexico Arrests CJNG Leader R2 in Zapopan With U.S. Intelligence Help
Rafael Álvarez Ayala, alias R2, was arrested in Zapopan on Sunday, the latest CJNG leader detained since February. Analysts weigh what comes next.
Mexican authorities arrested Rafael Álvarez Ayala, alias R2, a top leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), on Sunday in Zapopan, part of the Guadalajara metropolitan area, according to El País English. Nineteen other people were detained after a shootout outside a restaurant that wounded both R2 and a member of the Mexican Navy.
R2 was still hospitalized in Guadalajara on Monday after surgery for gunshot wounds, with Navy and National Guard members guarding the area. Authorities accuse him of serving as the cartel’s chief in the area.
What happened at the restaurant
Sources involved in the operation told El País that R2 and his associates had spent hours at a restaurant closed to the public for their private event, with a live banda band playing. Mexican authorities said intelligence from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) played a role in locating him.
A year of arrests since El Mencho
R2’s capture follows a series of operations against the group. In February 2026, its founder and leader, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, was killed. El País calls that the first major breakthrough of the security strategy of President Claudia Sheinbaum and Security Minister Omar García Harfuch, and says it was carried out with U.S. intelligence support.
- April: Audias Flores Silva, known as “El Jardinero,” described as a trusted lieutenant of El Mencho.
- July: Ramón Álvarez Ayala, alias R1, the alleged mastermind of the killing of politician Carlos Manzo.
- September: Manuel Alejandro Rendón Aguilar, “El Señor de la T,” the alleged regional coordinator in Michoacán.
- A month later: Iván Cazarín Molina, “El Tanque,” who allegedly oversaw operations in Veracruz, Oaxaca, Tabasco and Puebla. The same operation dismantled the network of Iván Sánchez Santiago, “El Cromo,” in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
R2 took over the cartel’s “Los R’s” cell after his brother, Ramón Ángel Álvarez Ayala, was arrested over the killing of Carlos Manzo, the mayor of Uruapan. The brothers had also been arrested in Guadalajara in 2012, when authorities identified them as senior figures. Both reportedly took orders directly from El Mencho and oversaw operations in Michoacán and parts of Jalisco.
Why it matters
Security analysts told El País that the CJNG has become the top target for a Mexican government under growing pressure from the United States. Eduardo Guerrero, director of the consultancy Lantia Intelligence, said the government spent its first year trying to contain violence in Sinaloa and shifted toward the CJNG in its second. Lantia’s data counts around 122 subordinate or allied groups answering to the cartel’s leadership.
The DEA calls the CJNG one of the world’s “most powerful, influential and ruthless” criminal organizations. Manuel Balcázar, a security consultant at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM), credits the arrests to binational cooperation and says the cartel has expanded beyond the American continent, with recent operations in Spain, Ecuador, Nigeria and South Africa.
Guerrero says Michoacán matters to Washington because of U.S. supplies of avocados, limes and berries, and that Mexican and U.S. authorities are testing a strategy there to weaken criminal groups on financial, logistical and human fronts. He cautions that whether it will succeed is uncertain.
What analysts say comes next
Because the CJNG works like a franchise, Balcázar says, weakening it takes pressure on three fronts: keeping up current operations, which he says must continue for another two years, going after its finances through financial intelligence, and targeting its political connections.
Guerrero agrees on the political front. He says Mexico has responded well to U.S. pressure except when it comes to politicians linked to the governing party, Morena, who are also tied to criminal groups, and claims some figures in the inner circle of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador are untouchable. El País did not report a response from those politicians.
Source: El País English
