In nine years of wintering in Puerto Vallarta, the sun-washed resort city on Mexico’s Pacific Coast, Berl Schwartz has heard plenty of rumors about the cartel presence.
The Jalisco New Generation cartel was said to be laundering money in the swanky hotels and the construction industry. Sometimes a business would suddenly close; many people assumed it hadn’t paid the extortion fee. But to Schwartz, 79, an American retiree, the cartel was nearly invisible.
On Sunday, that changed. Cartel operatives went on a rampage after the killing of their leader, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, setting fire to cars and buses and attacking stores. From his apartment balcony, Schwartz could hear blaring alarms and the boom of explosions. Billowing, acrid-smelling black clouds drifted over the turquoise waters of Banderas Bay.
“The cartel, it never really entered my mind as anything serious that would ever affect me,” said Schwartz, a former journalist from Lansing, Michigan. “Now I’m not so sure. We’re nervous.”
Smoke billows from burning vehicles amid a wave of violence, with torched vehicles and gunmen blocking highways in more than half a dozen states, following a military operation in which a government source said Mexican drug lord Nemesio Oseguera, known as "El Mencho," was killed, in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico, on Sunday, in this screen grab obtained from a social media video. morelifediares/Instagram/Reuters
The violence that swept Mexico on Sunday underscored how organized-crime groups h
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