Los Mezcales Break Off From The CJNG & Start A War Against Them in Colima

The Larger Cartel Context 

So why the sudden outbreak of violence, seemingly all at once? On Twitter, the journalist Oscar Adrián, who has worked for Reforma and Colima news outlet Periodismo, explained that the recent violence was due to the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generation (CJNG) fighting against the local cartel group “Los Mezcales”. The name of the group derives from the neighborhood in downtown Colima called El Mezcalito. 

According to Oscar Adrián, the CJNG and Los Mezcales were previously working together however recently the two groups had a falling out and are now at war with each other. 

At approximately 9:00 am on January 25, 2022, a brawl broke out between two gangs within a Colima prison in Buildings A & B. Reporters say a large amount of state and federal level security was seen entering the prison, followed shortly by the arrival of seven ambulances. Later it was revealed that 9 inmates had been killed and seven inmates had been injured in the brawl. 

On January 26, 2022 the Secretary of Security for Colima, Manuel Llerandi Ruiz gave an interview about the incident to Milenio reporter (and CJNG favorite) Azucena Uresti. Secretary Llerandi Ruiz said that prison guards found the prisoners involved to be in possession of cellphones, bladed weapons and most notably, a firearm. He said they believed these items of contraband were delivered by being thrown inside, or as he directly said “launched from the outside”. 

He stated that the nine who were killed in the incident all sustained gunshot wounds. And two of the seven injured had also sustained gunshot wounds. In regards to the deceased, he said “I do not have confirmed information on which groups the deceased people belonged to.” 

Secretary Llerandi Ruiz referred to the CJNG and Los Mezcales as rivals in an interview about the recent killing of nine inmates in a Colima prison. He said “It is presumed that the confrontation was by alleged members of CJNG and Los Mezcales.”

He continued “We don’t know what the reason for the fight was,” adding, “The information was that Los Mezcales were working with the CJNG, we don’t know why the relationship ended.” This interview was the first ever acknowledgment of a divide between the two groups from state law enforcement authorities. 

Strangely, a few days later Colima’s State Attorney General Bryant Alejandro García Ramírez and a team of three officials denied having any information which indicates there is a local cartel group fighting the CJNG and instead asserted the prison killings were due to a dispute between two CJNG groups.

In the early morning hours of February 7, 2022, a group of armed men shot up the exterior of a house and two pickup trucks, which were parked outside. A total of 221 shell casings were found at the scene. This directly preceded the shooting of the former Congressman’s house that occurred the very next night.

Then, the aforementioned flurry of violent events occurred on February 8,  the shooting up of the house, the dead bodies being found and the three narco message signs. It is important to note that Oscar Adrián says that the “Colima Independent Cartel” is merely a new title that the Los Mezcales group had given itself. 

Of note, the location of one of the narco message banners (which make very clear that Los Mezcales and the CJNG have split) being so close to the office of the State Attorney General’s Office could be interpreted as a direct message in response to State Attorney Office’s earlier denial of a split. 

The content of the narcomantas appears to support the claim from the Secretary of Security, and not the Attorney General’s Office,  that there has indeed been a split.

El Vaca

Now, going back to the narco message banner from Colima Independent Cartel (or really, Los Mezcales) the signer called himself “El Vaca”, or “The Cow” which is the alias of cartel leader José Bernabé Brizuela Meraz. El Vaca is a well known criminal leadership figure within Colima and he sometimes goes by the aliases of “El Berna”, “El Animal”, and “La Bestia” as well. 

As some background, El Vaca was born on October 21, 1982 in the port city of Lázaro Cárdenas, in the state of Michoacán. The details of his early criminal career are few and far between.

We do know that at some point he moved from Michoacán to Baja California because his criminal record indicates he was found guilty on charges of  kidnapping, robbery, and homicide in Baja California and released on June 13, 2002. During his time in Baja California, El Vaca was identified as a member of the Cártel Arellano Félix (CAF). 

On November 21, 2010, former governor of Colima Jesús Silverio Cavazos Ceballos was killed outside his home. President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa condemned the murder and called for answers about the perpetrators of the crime.

Just a few months later, on February 9, 2011, the CJNG subgroup Los Torcidos released a video interrogation of a taxi driver who claimed to have previously worked for another CJNG subgroup, called La Resistencia. 

It should be noted that this was during a time when the CJNG was only just starting to form itself out of the Milenio Cartel and it was going through an internal divide, with one side called La Resistencia and the other side was called Los Torcidos, or “The Turncoats”. 

The taxi driver, Gilberto Arturo López Rangel, claimed to have insider knowledge about the assasination of former Governor Cavazos. He said that the La Resistencia figure La Vaca had killed him and he was ordered to do so by Gerardo Mendoza Chávez, alias “El Flaco”. 

It is important to note that El Flaco was often identified as the leader of the La Resistencia faction at this time. The video then ends with the following message: 

Then in April 2011, a civilian submitted an anonymous tip directly with soldiers from the Army (SEDENA) and the Air Force about the current location of La Vaca.  Officials later said in regards to the tip that “precise information was provided to locate these alleged criminals.”

On April 30, 2011, Federal Police officers and soldiers from the Marines conducted an operation which specifically aimed to arrest La Vaca at the location they were given, which was in the El Mezcalito neighborhood of the city of Colima, in Colima state. The operation was successful and La Vaca was taken into federal custody.

A day later, on May 1, 2011, Governor Mario Anguiano Moreno announced that the actual murderer of Governor Silverio Cavazos was Hilario Geovanny Pérez Loera, alias “El Chiguas”. According to La Parada Digital, the governor went on to allege that although there was evidence that a cartel member who went by “La Vaca” who participated in the assasination, however, that man merely had the same alias as José Bernabé Brizuela Meraz.

After this, the news reports go silent in regards to La Vaca. He was evidently released from custody because he was living as a free man when, on May 23, 2013, SEDENA soldiers and law enforcement agents conducted a raid which aimed to re-arrest him. 

The raid took place at a residence, an expensive multi-level home that was valued at just under $2.5 million at the time, on Morelos Street in a section of the town of Comala that is famous for its lush white-facaded buildings. 

At least six cartel hitmen spotted the soldiers and a shootout occurred, as they tried to defend El Vaca from the attempted arrest. The hitmen fired towards them with long barrel firearms that were equipped with 40 mm grenade launcher attachments, trying to buy Vaca and his wife Lorena Sánchez Rodríguez time to escape the area. 

During the battle two hitmen were killed and three soldiers were injured. After seeing that they were outnumbered by the soldiers and having just watched two fellow hitmen be shot to death, four of El Vaca’s hitmen chose to surrender and be taken into custody.

Then soldiers chased after the fleeing El Vaca and an altar with candles lit in front of the image of Santa Muerte was hit. The candles toppled onto some nearby blankets, setting them aflame in a blaze that quickly surrounded the room. 

El Vaca had on him a Beretta 380 pistol, equipped with a suppressor and nine bullets in its magazine, but he did not choose to open fire. Instead, he identified himself to the soldiers as the boss and offered them $5 million dollars if they would secretly release him and claim they were unable to find him. Vaca said he could get them the money from a sister of his who was secretly working as the accountant for the criminal group. The soldiers evidently did not take the bribe and El Vaca, along with his wife Lorena Sánchez, were taken into custody. 

The soldiers then fully searched the property. Inside, they found a room that was being used as a crystal meth lab and over 5 kilos of freshly-created meth nearby, which they seized. They also seized from the property three fragmentation grenades that were found in an armchair, two vehicles, radios, cellphones, a laptop and a notebook containing notes that were apparently related to the activities of the criminal organization. 

After later interviews, it was discovered that three of the four hitmen who were arrested were originally from Tijuana, in Baja California. They said they were initially hired on the border to sell drugs for the CJNG and were then brought to Colima to perform similar functions in various rented properties in the area, such as safe houses and “tienditas”, or “small stores”. They said they also participated in kidnappings and homicides on behalf of the group. 

Strangely, during the announcement of his arrest, officials described El Vaca as an operator of La Línea. However, when the son of the leader of the CJNG, Rubén Oseguera González, alias “El Menchito” was arrested in June 2015, the Federal Attorney General’s Office listed off previous arrests of major CJNG figures and cited El Vaca, seemingly contradicting themselves. 

Eventually, La Vaca would be sent to the maximum security prison commonly known as Altiplano, in México state while he was awaiting his criminal trial.

In September 2015, a hunger strike occurred with at least 20 inmates acting as participants in Module 1of Altiplano. While the names of the participants were never officially released, it was rumored that La Vaca was one of  notable cartel members who participated along with the likes of Héctor Beltrán Leyva, of the Beltrán Leyva Organization (BLO); Edgar Valdés Villarreal alias “La Barbie” of the BLO; Servando Gómez Martínez alias “La Tuta”, of Caballeros Templarios; Mario Cárdenas Guillén, of the Gulf Cartel; and Arturo Martínez Herrera, of Los Texas/Los Negros of Nuevo Laredo.

On October 28, 2016, La Vaca’s criminal trial was formally concluded and he was sentenced to 34 years of prison. 

During his time in Altiplano, La Vaca reportedly did not get along well with another famous inmate, Miguel Treviño Morales, alias “Z-40”. Later it was reported by La Vaca’s relatives that “Z-40 threatened him with death when he was in the Altiplano and he told him he was going to kill him.” Luckily for La Vaca though, Z40 was transferred out of Altiplano in May 2017 before Z40 got a chance to harm him. 

For a number of years little was reported on La Vaca. Then in 2019, a court in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas chose to issue an arrest warrant against him on charges of aggravated homicide and offenses against public servants. 

This arrest warrant would force La Vaca to be transferred to a prison in Tamaulipas so he could appear for arraignment. This prison in Tamaulipas would presumably be filled with cartel members who were loyal to Z40. 

In December 2019, on the day that La Vaca was scheduled to be transferred, he was loaded into a federal van and driven towards Tamaulipas, however as the caravan of prison vehicles approached a certain section of Highway 175, the road was blocked. Cartel members attacked the caravan and a violent shootout occurred. One police officer was killed and four more were injured however La Vaca was ultimately not freed by the cartel members. 

After the failed attempt to break La Vaca, he was sent back to Oaxaca. On January 26, 2020, it was reported that a magistrate judge in Oaxaca refused to accept the Tamaulipas warrant and then left for vacation. Upon the judge’s return, he ordered that La Vaca be released due to the excessive time in which he had been held without arraignment.

Thereafter, it appears that La Vaca returned to Colima and rejoined the CJNG, where he likely found he had been replaced by new leadership figures like the Jarquín Jarquín brothers, El Chaparito and El R32. From there, he likely formed a new subgroup named Los Mezcales, with men loyal to himself primarily and the CJNG secondarily. 

Sources: El Comentario Article 1, Article 2, Diario de Colima Article 1, Article 2, Article 3, Oscar Adrián, Azucena Uresti, Publi Metro, FGE Statement

La Vaca Sources: Diario de Colima (1), Diario de Colima (2), El Universal, Debate, Zeta Tijuana, La Sabia Calle, Noroeste, LUIS Figue Noticias, BB Article from Oaxaqueño, Excelsior, La Prensa, Tribuna

Footnotes: 

*In terms of the official PGR record, El Vaca was identified as a member of the Cártel Arellano Félix (CAF) during his time in Baja California. It is quite possible that during this time El Vaca was a member of the Cártel Arellano Félix (CAF), but it is also possible that he was a member of the Colima Cartel which was working closely with the CAF at the time, producing and manufacturing meth on their behalf. 

**There is a discrepancy on the number of hitmen who were arrested between publication Zeta Tijuana, which reports there were four hitmen who were arrested and La Parada Digital, which reports there were only two.