It’s not the lesson anyone asked for. But it might be the most important one you get this year.

On February 22nd, Mexican military forces killed Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, the longtime leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and one of the most wanted criminals on the planet. The operation was, by any objective measure, a major victory for Mexican law enforcement. The DEA had a $15 million bounty on El Mencho’s head. His cartel had reach in more than 35 countries.

Within hours, you wouldn’t have known any of that from what was circulating online.

Images went viral showing Puerto Vallarta engulfed in flames. The Guadalajara airport, according to social media, had been overrun by assassins. A plane was reportedly on fire on the tarmac. Tourists sheltering in place in their hotel rooms were scrolling through footage that made it look like the country was coming apart at the seams.

Nearly all of it was fake. AI-generated images, fabricated videos and coordinated false reports swept across social media so quickly, and looked so convincing, that tens of thousands of people shared them before anyone could debunk them. PolitiFact documented and fact-checked one of the most widely-circulated images, an AI-generated photo of Puerto Vallarta in flames that had been viewed and shared across TikTok and other platforms.

Read their full fact-check here: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2026/feb/23/social-media/El-Mencho-Mexico-cartel-Puerto-Vallarta-AI/

Reuters reviewed the images and confirmed they were false. Their reporting documented the coordinated propaganda campaign in detail.

Read their full report here: https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-02-24/after-killing-of-top-drug-lord-cartels-use-fake-news-to-spread-fear-in-mexico

Real violence did occur. Cartel loyalists set up roadblocks, burned buses and businesses, and attacked gas stations across multiple Mexican states. But the online version of events was engineered to look exponentially worse, and for a specific purpose. As one analyst put it to Reuters, “Sunday was a good day for Mexican security forces. But organized crime has been successful in shifting the narrative, away from the military raid to chaos.”

That sentence should stop every business leader, nonprofit director, and communications professional in their tracks. Because what it describes is not a criminal phenomenon. It’s a communications strategy. And it worked.

Here’s what the cartel got right, regardless of how deplorable the source:

When El Mencho was killed, the cartel didn’t scramble to figure out how to respond. They activated a plan. That plan included a network of social media accounts, cartel-aligned influencers with existing audiences, and what researchers describe as operatives embedded in less-than-reputable media channels. The content creation pipeline and the distribution network were already in place. When the moment came, they flipped the switch.

Most organizations, facing a crisis, start building that infrastructure on the worst possible day to build it.

In the hours after El Mencho’s death, real journalists in Mexico faced real dangers trying to report from the ground. That information vacuum was an opportunity, and the cartel filled it. By the time credible reporting caught up, the false narrative had already shaped how hundreds of thousands of people understood the situation. In today’s information environment, speed isn’t just an advantage. It’s often the whole game.

The disinformation didn’t stay on one platform or reach one audience. It traveled across TikTok, X, Facebook and beyond, picked up and amplified by well-meaning people who thought they were sharing real news, and by bad actors who knew exactly what they were doing. It moved through earned media when journalists had to report on the viral claims even to debunk them. It crossed borders. It reached tourists in their hotel rooms, policymakers, and news audiences worldwide.

AI made all of it faster, cheaper and more convincing than anything that would have been possible even five years ago.

The lesson here is not subtle, and it doesn’t require you to admire where it came from. If you don’t have a crisis communications plan, you’re not ready. If you don’t have the infrastructure to reach your audience quickly across multiple channels, you’re not ready. If you’re not using the tools available to you to create content that is compelling, credible and fast, you’re not ready. And when a crisis hits, whether it’s a lawsuit, a regulatory challenge, a community controversy, a competitor’s false claims about your organization, or simply a bad news cycle, someone else will fill the narrative void. They may not be a drug cartel. They may just be a frustrated customer, a determined competitor, or an opposition group that’s been waiting for their moment.

The communications landscape does not reward organizations with the best intentions. It rewards the ones that are prepared.

The cartel’s content was monstrous in its origins and purpose. But its strategic logic is sound, and the organizations it should concern aren’t just governments and law enforcement.

It should concern yours.