Between the roar of gunshots and the blockades by drug traffickers, tourists were left trapped on Sunday in some cabins in Tapalpain the Mexican state of Jalisco, where he was killed in a military operation Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias El Menchoaccording to what a witness told EFE this Tuesday after experiencing the violent day on the front line.
“Since I woke up, the helicopters were already flying very close, and it was around 7:00 (15:00 GMT) when our relatives tried to contact us,” says the tourist, who asked to remain anonymous, stating that that morning she “realized” that she was staying a few kilometers from ‘El Mencho’s’ lair, in the Tapalpa Country Club tourist complex.
In this wooded area, surrounded by hundreds of trees and luxury residences, the witness and her group of friends locked themselves in a room at the back of a cabin, “the safest,” because “it didn’t have so many windows that a bullet could go through.”
With the little signal that reached their cell phones, they received dozens of messages sent to a condominium chat, made up of approximately 60 people – including national and international tourists and organizers – who asked guests and owners “not to leave the cabins.”
A man on a bicycle takes a photograph of a truck set on fire by organized crime groups on a highway near Acatlán de Juárez, Jalisco, Mexico, on February 22, 2026. (Photo by Ulises Ruiz / AFP).
/ ULISES RUIZ
Outside the cabins, a strong operation by the Mexican Army was underway to capture ‘El Mencho’, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and one of the most wanted drug traffickers in the world.
“At first we thought it was a normal operation, but then we began to receive videos of armed groups passing between the cabins and, minutes later, we heard gunshots. An hour of gunshots,” he recalls, adding that it was until noon when the shooting stopped.
Those bullets pursued the head of the CJNG, who since February 21 was hiding in an exclusive cabin with his romantic partner.
The conversations during those trapped hours were ones of fear and isolation.
“We were in a state of war from which we could not get out,” he points out, as there was a blockade with a truck that prevented passage.
A Mexican Army soldier guards the Military Garrison facilities in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, on February 23, 2026, one day after the death of El Mencho. (Photo by Herika Martinez / AFP).
/ HERIKA MARTINEZ
“We didn’t have any more food” and, above all, “we wanted to return home,” because “our families live in Guadalajara, where the situation was “even worse,” he adds.
The operation against the Mexican boss unleashed a wave of violence throughout the country, in which 25 members of the National Guard and more than 30 members of the CJNG died.
Returning to the city of Guadalajara on Sunday afternoon was a “mission impossible”, since, in addition to the illegal blockades in Tapalpa, more were reported in the state: 18 in total, according to federal authorities.
“In the chat at the condominiums it was said that they were still burning cars and businesses and that it was not safe to return (…) As the hours passed, I sent a message to my mother every thirty minutes to tell her that everything was fine,” the witness says about this episode.
“The fear did not go away from my skin,” he emphasizes.
READ ALSO: Jalisco tries to return to normality after the death of El Mencho, head of the CJNG
Sunday night was marked by “insomnia,” due to the psychosis that “someone would come in or the bullets would sound again.”
“When we woke up we knew that we had to get out of there,” he says, explaining that the escape strategy was carried out among small groups of tourists who were leaving Tapalpa and, at the same time, notifying them by WhatsApp messages of the state of the road to Guadalajara.
With the arrival of the first group to the capital of Jalisco, the witness managed to leave Tapalpa in a two and a half hour journey, during which she counted more than 15 vehicles overturned on the road, all “full of ash.”
“On every curve you found a burned truck or ruts covered with dirt so that the cars would not sink,” he highlights, pointing out that during the tour he never saw any military force guarding the area until reaching the capital of Jalisco.
Three days later, Guadalajara, one of the main operating points of the CJNG, continues with the red code activated and activities on hold.
