Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes has reportedly built his own hospital to attend to the ravages of kidney disease, a medical problem which may be hindering his ability to avoid capture.

The 54-year-old crime boss known as “El Mencho,” the most wanted criminal in both Mexico and the United States, allegedly built the medical center in El Alcíhuatl, Jalisco, just 50 kilometers from the cartel’s stronghold in Villa Purificación.

According to the newspaper El Universal, the hospital is located in a wooded area off of dirt roads and is meant to provide medical treatment to the cartel leader and cartel members — and the agricultural town’s 200 residents as a gesture of good faith.

Cartels have seized on the economic crisis created by the coronavirus to garner public support, offering money and food to those in need in Jalisco, Michoacán, Veracruz, Colima and Tamaulipas.

It was from El Alcíhuatl that authorities say the CJNG shot down a Mexican army helicopter during an operation to capture him in 2015. 

Over the past six years, law enforcement officials say they have tracked El Mencho to several towns in the area but the fugitive has managed to stay one step ahead of the law.

The construction of the hospital is a bold move for the man who tops the United States Drug Enforcement Administration’s list of most wanted subjects, and billboards in the United States have been used to advertise a US $10-million reward for information leading to his arrest. 

The U.S. has called the CJNG “one of the five most dangerous criminal organizations on the face of the Earth,” and claim it has operatives in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Central America, the United States and 24 Mexican states.

In Mexico, the reward for similar information was upped to 30 million pesos (about US $1.37 million) in 2018.

El Mencho’s world may be closing in on him, especially if he is in failing health.

His son, Rubén “El Menchito” Oseguera was extradited to the United States on drug trafficking charges earlier this year. El Mencho’s daughter, Jessica Johanna Oseguera González, alias “La Negra,” was arrested after traveling to the United States to attend her brother’s court hearing. Both siblings are thought to have played a major role in the cartel’s finances.

Source: El Universal (sp), La Silla Rota (sp)