Two years ago, back in the bad old days of President Autopen, I introduced a piece on Mexican cartels by predicting, “In the time it takes you to read this article, it’s most likely that some American somewhere will have died from an overdose of fentanyl.” With President Donald Trump taking office and making it a priority to fight the fentanyl threat, I would now have to write an article that’s about 25% longer to maintain that statement.

But that success is only the beginning. While people were aware that President Trump placed a price on the head of former Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, not as many knew about a bounty placed on Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as “El Mencho,” the former head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel who assumed room temperature en route to treatment at a Mexico City hospital after being mortally wounded in a daring raid on a mountain compound by Mexican special forces. As reported in The Wall Street Journal, “U.S. and Mexican law enforcement saw capturing Oseguera as a high-risk operation because of his military might and the risks of widespread violence. With this strike, Mexico had provided a ‘scalp to the U.S., putting off the threat of unilateral U.S. military action against the cartels,’ said Mike Burgoyne, a former U.S. military attaché in Mexico City.”

Burgoyne’s assessment signals a further change in thinking by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has turned from the initial perception upon her election of being controlled by the cartels to a more cooperative stance, at least according to The New York Times. “[El Mencho’s] death is likely to improve the Mexican government’s relations with Washington,” the Times reported. “Mr. Trump has been pressuring Mexico to combat the cartels more forcefully and threatening military strikes against the groups if he is not satisfied with the results. Ms. Sheinbaum has firmly and repeatedly rejected that proposal, saying any U.S. strikes would violate Mexico’s sovereignty. At the same time, her government has expanded its cooperation with American security agencies, including on intelligence.”

In fact, our “intelligence support” was credited as part of the success of the operation, which was exclusively carried out by the Mexican military.

That success, however, came with a cost, as angry cartel members ran rampant in several Mexican states, blocking roads, burning buildings, and killing dozens. The American embassy urged U.S. citizens in several locations to shelter in place until further notice. Meanwhile, schools were closed in several areas of Mexico, while concerts and soccer matches were canceled. “The Mexican government, assisted by our government, has won a great victory against the New Generation Cartel of Jalisco,” said National Review’s Jim Geraghty. “But it has come at a significant cost, costs borne mostly by the people of Mexico, hiding in their homes and wondering when the streets will be safe again.”

Then again, the streets of Mexico haven’t been all that safe for years since narco-terrorism took over in the 1990s, with the cartels becoming powerful enough to enlist the use of drones rigged with explosives against Border Patrol agents, as our Emmy Griffin wrote last year. So it was more of a precaution for Americans to hunker down as cartels used the common psychological ploy of burning cars and halting traffic to remind people who’s in control. “They are burning buses, they’re shutting down roads, not only in Jalisco, but Michoacan, Colima, Tamaulipas, Guanajuato, and then also Aguas Calientes,” said Mike Vigil, former DEA Chief of International Operations, to CBS News. “And what they’re trying to do is show that they are still a force to be reckoned with, that this was not a lethal blow to them.”

The bigger fear, however, is a war between factions of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel if there wasn’t a succession plan in place. In the meantime, former DEA acting administrator Derek Maltz acknowledged that the operation’s success was a long time coming: “We’ve been sharing intelligence against Mencho for a long time. And we share intelligence daily with our counterparts in the embassy in Mexico.”

There was still a sense of triumph from Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau. “The good guys are stronger than the bad guys,” he wrote on X, but later cautioned, “I’m watching the scenes of violence from Mexico with great sadness and concern. It’s not surprising that the bad guys are responding with terror. But we must never lose our nerve.”

The lives of thousands who could be fentanyl victims depend on us staying in the fight.