MEXICO CITY: First – hand accounts are emerging from Americans who were trapped by this week’s events in Mexico after the death of cartel boss Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho.”
As the news of the murder of the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG) boss spread, reports described armed clashes between rival criminal organizations and Mexican security forces, along with coordinated vehicle burnings and temporary highway blockades. Mexican authorities state that such operations are often related to internal cartel disputes or targeted law – enforcement actions.
With the situation getting better, Americans in the tourist area of Puerto Vallarta and other places shared their experiences of the violent scenes they got caught up in.
“My group consisted of seven people. We were on our way to the main port in Puerto Vallarta with a local shuttle driver when we saw a bus stopped horizontally across the road in front of us. At first, we thought it was an accident, but then we saw people running at full speed away from the bus,” Colorado resident Scott Posilkin told Digital.
“While we were trying to understand what was happening, we saw a man with a gun come around the far side of the bus. He waved the gun at us and gave us a hand signal to turn around, which we did right away. We tried to go in the opposite direction, but we came across another burning car, which left us basically trapped between the two.”
He went on, “We went down to the only beach we could reach. One of the locals advised us that the safest place for us would be out on the water. We took a tender boat out to the snorkeling boat we were supposed to be on and stayed there for a few hours. From the water, we could see what seemed like a large part of the town on fire.”
Posilkin said, “It took a long time to get a boat back to shore. At one point, we even considered swimming because there was no one on the beach to pick us up. The captain said he had never seen the beach so empty in his life, and he grew up there. We eventually flagged down a passing tender that brought us to shore. There were cartel members on a motorcycle who yelled ‘Viva Mexico’ at us, but we didn’t feel that they were threatening us at all. Both our shuttle driver and the locals assured us that the cartel wasn’t interested in harming Americans and that it was still the safest way for us to get home.”
Posilkin gave credit to the locals for their help and support. “I want to stress how much the locals went out of their way to help us during an extremely stressful situation. Everyone we interacted with — from our boat captain to our shuttle driver — had grown up here, and none of them had ever seen anything like this before… More than anything, I feel sorry for the locals. Tourism is their livelihood, and I’m worried about the impact this will have on them. This experience hasn’t changed my love for travel or for Mexico, even though it was a tough ordeal.”
Rodolfo Flores, an American citizen and an executive in the energy sector, talked to Digital: “Although it wasn’t one of the worst – affected areas, on Sunday I saw a [object] that had been burned down with a Molotov bomb.”
He said, “On the way to Mexico City, we saw cars and trucks that had been set on fire. This is just one example of how vulnerable we are, and it’s amazing how these criminal organizations can terrorize the population. The authorities are to blame for allowing them to grow and expand with highly effective criminal cells.”
Security analysts note that cartel violence often intensifies after high – profile arrests, internal leadership disputes, or changes in territorial control. Public displays of force — such as coordinated blockades or attacks on infrastructure — can serve as demonstrations of operational capacity.
Another American, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons, told Digital, “I left Coalcoman Michoacan on Sunday at 11:00 a.m. when the chaos started. As I left town, I saw them burning cars and trucks, pulling people out of their vehicles, and setting them on fire. Luckily, I managed to escape and cross the mountains; it’s a mountainous region. All along the way, I kept seeing burning cars and armed people. I was lucky that they didn’t stop me,” he said.
“I made it all the way to Colima and then to Guadalajara. Later, things got worse in my town. I heard they started burning gas stations and set fire to a supermarket. They closed off the town so people couldn’t get in or out.”
On Tuesday afternoon, the [entity] posted an update stating that “U.S. citizens are no longer urged to shelter in place.”