Mexico’s Jalisco drug cartel commander ‘El Jardinero’ found hiding in ditch

Mexican special forces have arrested Audias Flores, known as “El Jardinero”, one of the top commanders of the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), as well as his chief financial operator, Mexico’s Security of Security ⁠Omar Garcia Harfuch said.

Videos shared by ‌Garcia Harfuch on social media on Monday showed aerial footage of the arrest of Flores as helicopters hovered overhead during the arrest operation, which the Mexican Navy said followed months of surveillance and involved more than 500 troops, six helicopters and several planes.

“Audias Flores Silva, alias ‘El Jardinero’, was detained in Nayarit. He has an arrest warrant in Mexico and is also sought by United States authorities for extradition purposes. For his capture, the US government offered a reward of 5 million dollars,” Garcia Harfuch said in a post on social media.

Flores, a regional commander in control of swaths of CJNG territory along Mexico’s Pacific coast, was considered a potential successor to Nemesio Oseguera, alias “El Mencho”, who ran the feared cartel and was killed by security forces in February.

Later on Monday evening, the security secretary said that Flores’s financial operator, Cesar Alejandro “N”, alias “El Guero Conta”, was arrested in a joint security operation in the central Mexican city of Zapopan.

“‘El Guero Conta’ is accused of laundering funds from illicit activities through companies and frontmen, as well as acquiring aircraft, vessels, houses, ranches, and investing in tequila production companies,” the minister said.

Mexico’s Navy said in a statement that special forces surrounded a cabin in El Mirador, some 20km (12 miles) north of the popular resort city of Puerto Vallarta, where Flores was being protected by a perimeter of some 30 pick-up trucks and more than 60 gunmen.

Flores’s escorts scattered as a diversion, but the Jalisco cartel leader was located as he tried to hide in a drainage ditch, the Navy said.

“The operation was carried out with surgical precision without a single shot being fired,” the navy said.

Carlos Olivo, a former US Drug Enforcement Administration agent and a CJNG expert, said ⁠Flores was key to operations within the Jalisco cartel, controlling networks of drug laboratories, smuggling routes, and distribution networks within the US.

Sheinbaum warns US over CIA operations

The arrest of Flores, which, according to the Reuters news agency, involved intelligence provided by US authorities, comes as Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum warned that Washington’s covert operations in her country must not be repeated, following the deaths earlier this month of two CIA agents in a car accident in the northern state of Chihuahua.