"El Tuli", lieutenant of "El Mencho", dies after CJNG riots

He ordered the blocking of roads and communication routes, the burning of cars and other vehicles, the attack on barracks and businesses, and the sowing of chaos after the military operation that this Sunday decapitated the dangerous Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) by killing its leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, "El Mencho". His right-hand man, Hugo César Macías Ureña, alias "El Tuli" or "El Tulipán", was identified by Mexican authorities as the coordinator of armed cells and financial operator of the CJNG, and as the intellectual author of the blockades and riots that followed the death of "El Mencho", and in which 25 members of the National Guard and three civilians died. Macías Ureña himself also lost his life in the clashes with the security forces, as well as 33 other alleged criminals linked to the CJNG.

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"With central military intelligence, information was also obtained that Hugo 'H', alias 'El Tuli', who was the logistics and financial operator and the main person of trust of 'El Mencho', was in El Grullo, Jalisco," assured General Ricardo Trevilla Trejo, Secretary of National Defense, in the press conference in which the chronology of the operation against the CJNG was detailed. From El Grullo "he was coordinating blockades on the communication routes, the burning of vehicles, the attacks on military installations, on the National Guard, in short, businesses, government installations, etcetera. And he also offered 20,000 pesos for each soldier who assassinated all the personnel of this criminal group," revealed the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Omar García Harfuch. In response, an airmobile unit of Special Forces from the Paratrooper Rifle Brigade was deployed, explained Trevilla Trejo. Upon being located, "El Tuli" attempted to escape in a vehicle and allegedly opened fire on the officers deployed to capture him, who responded by killing the one considered to be one of "El Mencho"'s closest collaborators, also known as "El señor de los gallos".

Who was "El Tuli"

Hugo César Macías Ureña appears in ministerial investigations and intelligence reports as one of the operational commanders closest to the now deceased Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, according to the newspaper "Milenio". This is revealed even by several narcocorridos dedicated to "El Tuli", that musical genre popular in some areas of Mexico that exalts the figures of drug traffickers and offers details about their lives. In "El Tulipán", by Martín Castillo, it is pointed out, for example, that "el 5", also known as Macías Ureña, is a "very trusted compadre for that Lord of the Roosters, in good times and bad, they have never let him down, and in the worst battles they have always come out winning". "I won't say what he does, I don't want misunderstandings," continues Martín Castillo, "but he's Mencho's buddy and loves his children." "El Tuli" was, apparently, identified as the direct head of shock cells with influence in the territorial operation, according to information provided by detained hitmen and leaked documents, according to "Milenio". Authorities clarified that Macías Ureña had not been officially named successor to "El Mencho", but quickly assumed operational control of the cartel after the leader's death.

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During the group's expansion phase in western Mexico, "El Tuli" was part of the cartel's second operational line, a time when he consolidated his model based on heavily armed mobile cells. According to the newspaper, three factors had led Macías Ureña to consolidate his growth within the CJNG structure: his ability to recruit new members, his control of hitman groups, and tactical coordination in the field.

These are attributes that he was able to demonstrate last Sunday when he took the reins of the cartel's response to the military operation against "El Mencho"

The past detention of cartel members such as Juan Francisco Aguilar Santana, alias "Juan Pistolas", places him as a regional commander with access to the central structure of the CJNG.