The Man Behind the Operation Against El Mencho

Mexico City's security head, who supervised the operation to assassinate drug kingpin "El Mencho," lives in protected office buildings, including a one-bedroom apartment in the security ministry.

His facilities, located in a modern complex along a bustling thoroughfare, contain a bedroom, gym, kitchen, and a 25-seat conference room. According to a high-ranking government official who has visited the apartment, guests may hear shooting coming from a firing range within the building complex. A red telephone on his desk allows immediate access to the president.

Omar Garcia Harfuch, 44, has been living this way since 2020, when a truck blocked off his armored Suburban on his way to work, and gunmen posing as road workers poured more than 400 bullets into it. Harfuch returned fire, surviving with three gunshot wounds. Two of his bodyguards and one passerby were slain.

The security head blamed the murder attempt on Nemesio Oseguera, 59, also known as El Mencho, the vicious leader of Mexico's largest and bloodiest crime syndicate, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Six years later, taking down the cartel chief was a highly personal occasion for Harfuch, who, according to acquaintances, was heartbroken by the killings of his security guys.

Rising Influence and a New Security Strategy

Harfuch declined to comment on this subject. The story is based on interviews with a dozen friends, coworkers, and security analysts.

According to many who know Harfuch, he is unlikely to relax now that El Mencho is no longer around. However, the death of the kingpin has raised the profile of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum's Minister of Security and Citizen Protection, who is credited with spearheading her more aggressive approach to fighting cartels, to the point where he is considered an early frontrunner for the presidency when her six-year term expires in 2030.

"Omar Garcia Harfuch is the number one presidential candidate today," said Armando Vargas, the head of security at the research tank México Evalua. "He is the most visible leader of this new strategy."

The method is not without risks: El Mencho's death sparked a wave of violence throughout Mexico, killing 25 National Guard members and potentially fueling violent feuds as other cartel factions vie for power.

It's also a significant break from former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's "hugs not bullets" policy, under which cartels increased in power and reach to dominate wide swaths of territory and diversified beyond drugs into extortion, human trafficking, and illicit gasoline.

Trusted by President Claudia Sheinbaum

Harfuch rose to prominence in Mexico City's government under the mayorship of now-President Sheinbaum.

Rodrigo Canales, who advised Sheinbaum on her security policy, stated that Harfuch assisted her during a tough moment early in her mayoral tenure when high-ranking police officers were suspected of corruption.

"He has Claudia's absolute trust and earned it by being extremely loyal and effective in key moments early in her mayorship," Canales told the crowd.

After firing his predecessor over a money laundering incident, Sheinbaum promoted Harfuch as head of the city police force in 2019.

Harfuch had been on the job for less than a year when assassins attempted to kill him. After first returning fire, he crawled into the back seats of his armoured SUV and crouched down until reinforcements arrived, he explained in post-attack interviews. Twelve accused Jalisco cartel members were caught and given life sentences.

Following the ambush, he left his house and went to Mexico City's police headquarters. His already narrow inner circle tightened even more. He sees his children in fleeting moments.

"He went from someone who could go to a restaurant, meet friends, attend a colleague's birthday party, to being guarded in an office, spending nearly 90 percent of his life inside police buildings," said a friend who has known Harfuch for 20 years.

Family Legacy and Political Controversies

Harfuch is descended from a line of Mexican top brass.

His grandfather, Marcelino Garcia Barragan, was the military minister in the 1960s, and his father, Javier Garcia Paniagua, was a senator and presidential candidate who oversaw a federal security agency in the 1970s.

Harfuch's combination of police and military background is unusual in Mexico, and it puts him in a unique position to manage the country's heavily armed public security organization, according to two people who have worked with him.

"Garcia Harfuch was sort of destined to follow in his father and grandfather's footsteps," said Gladys McCormick, a professor and historian of United States-Mexico relations at Syracuse University.

However, some members of the current Marxist Morena party regard this heritage with distrust. His grandpa and father both oversaw military excesses and security forces' repression of popular movements.

Critics also point to Harfuch's alleged involvement in the 2014 disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teaching college. According to a 2022 truth commission report, he—then a mid-level federal police officer—attended meetings where officials created a version of events that obscured security agents' involvement in the disappearances.

Harfuch, who has never been accused of misconduct, previously stated that he just attended meetings to help coordinate the hunt for the missing kids. No local or federal officials have been sentenced in this case.

International Cooperation and the Hunt for El Mencho

Harfuch has emerged as the linchpin in US-Mexico security partnership at a time when US President Donald Trump is putting pressure on his southern neighbor to actively combat cartels, threatening to use US military force if Mexico fails to deliver.

Derek Maltz, former acting head of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, claimed he visited Harfuch last year shortly after Mexico transported 29 suspected high-level cartel members to the United States, the largest such transfer in history.

"He looked me in the eyes, and he said, 'This is only the beginning," says Maltz.

Maltz had his suspicions, but in the following months, Mexico gave over another 63 accused cartel leaders and arrested the country's most sought drug kingpin. "I'm very impressed with what I'm seeing," he told me.

The prisoner transfers highlight what authorities from both countries describe as unprecedented levels of collaboration and intelligence sharing as they work to dismantle cartels through military conflicts, money laundering investigations, and drug and rifle seizures.

The hunt for El Mencho became more urgent in November, when the Jalisco cartel kidnapped two of Harfuch's detectives near Zapopan, a cartel stronghold, according to a high-ranking Mexican official.

Soldiers stormed the homes of suspected cartel members, and interrogations yielded information that helped tighten the net around El Mencho. Reuters is the first to report on the involvement of kidnappings in the search for El Mencho. The agents were let go after a week.

According to Mexico's Defense Minister, Ricardo Trevilla, the breakthrough occurred when authorities tracked down one of El Mencho's numerous lovers at his estate. A fresh US military task group confirmed the house's exact location.

However, a government insider stated that the main slip was not the romance, but the 59-year-old cartel leader's desire to see his two children with her. Mexican troops came in after the girlfriend and El Mencho's children fled.

El Mencho died while being transported to a hospital by military chopper following a gunfight. His bodyguards, eight in total, were also slain. Two troops died during the raid, and another two died later from injuries.

According to the Mexican official, Harfuch received a confirmation text containing a photograph of El Mencho's body, still wearing a flak jacket.

"I spoke with him Sunday morning after El Mencho was killed," claimed Eduardo Clark, a high-ranking Mexican health official close to Harfuch. "He told me, 'this is a huge relief.'"