Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has said that there is “no risk” for visitors coming to Fifa World Cup games scheduled to be held in the country, after the death of a top cartel boss triggered a wave of retaliatory violence from gunmen who blocked roads and attacked security forces across the country.
The Mexican military attempted to detain “El Mencho”, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, in a dawn raid on Sunday, leading to a firefight in which he was fatally wounded, before dying while being airlifted to hospital.
Followers of El Mencho, whose real name is Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, immediately took the streets, blocking almost 100 major roads and attacking national guard bases, particularly in the states of Jalisco and Michoacán. At least 25 soldiers and 34 cartel gunmen died in the fighting.
By Monday the violence had largely ebbed – but local media reported episodes of violence in several rural municipalities of Jalisco province over the night on Monday.
Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco, is due to host four World Cup games. The tournament, which Mexico is co-hosting with the US and Canada, will also involve games in Monterrey and Mexico City, in the legendary Azteca stadium.
Sheinbaum said in her daily press conference on Tuesday that there are “all the guarantees” for the World Cup to be held in Mexico.
Guadalajara and the resort city of Puerto Vallarta, which were all but shutdown by Sunday’s violence, are gradually reopening this week.
“Little by little the situation [in Jalisco] is returning to normal,” said Sheinbaum.
“At Fifa Mexico, we are closely monitoring the situation in Jalisco and remain in constant communication with the authorities,” a Fifa spokesperson told Reuters on Monday.
Sheinbaum also said she was considering taking legal action against tech billionaire Elon Musk after he alleged on Monday that she took orders from Mexico’s drug cartels.
In a post on X following the killing of El Mencho, Musk responded to a 2025 video of Sheinbaum discussing cartel violence by saying that she was “saying what her cartel bosses tell her to say”.
In the clip, Sheinbaum said a return to a “war on drugs” was not an option.
“The war against the narco is outside of the law,” she said. “Because it is permission to kill without any trial.”
In the past, targeting cartel leaders has often led to the splintering of their organisations, as their lieutenants fight to take control. This is widely believed to have helped drive the high homicide rate in Mexico since President Felipe Calderón began a military offensive against Mexico’s cartels 20 years ago.
But Sheinbaum rejected the comparison between the operation that killed El Mencho and the security policies of her predecessor.
“A situation arose in which, during the arrest of a member of an organised crime group who had an arrest warrant out against him, members of the army were attacked and responded, and he died during transport,” she said.
“We’re looking for peace, not war,” she added. “That is the difference.”
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