Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes
According to the Mexican government, El Mencho may be hiding in the state of Jalisco, the CJNG's stronghold. However, they believe he does not stay in one place for too long, and travels across several municipalities in Jalisco and into the states of Michoacán, Colima, and Nayarit. He usually travels across the mountains and rural terrains in these areas since it provides multiple escape routes in the event that security forces attempt to encircle him. Authorities suspect El Mencho's inner circle is made up of mercenaries with former military training. His second security circle is much larger in size and serves as a rearguard to notify El Mencho's inner circle of suspicious activity and ambush potential parties that attempt to get close to him.
El Camino Viejo
This route along the unsettled frontier of Spanish colonial Las Californias—Alta California (1769–1822) came to be favored by those who wished to avoid the eyes of the Spanish authorities that were along the more settled coastal route of El Camino Real. Settlements like Las Juntas and Rancho Centinela (est. 1810), and later Poso de Chane and others began to grow up along the route of El Camino Viejo. Later Californio vaqueros made "El Camino Viejo" a well-known trail that connected Rancho San Antonio with the Pueblo de Los Ángeles. The vaqueros ran cattle and in the 1840s began establishing inland Mexican land grant ranchos along the route. Californio "mesteñeros" (wild horse catchers) also moved into the San Joaquin Valley to catch the "mesteños" (mustangs) that now roamed in the thousands, and held them in temporary corrals before herding them to the Bay Area, to Southern California, or to Sonora and other territories of northern Mexico for sale.