The internal battle of the Sinaloa Cartel, unleashed by the surrender of Ismael el Mayo Zambada to the United States by Joaquín Guzmán, son of El Chapo, has surpassed the levels that the state suffered in 2008, when Guzmán Loaera’s group, supported by Mayo Zambada himself, clashed with the faction of the brothers Arturo, Carlos, Alfredo, and Héctor Beltrán Leyva.
Currently, the confrontation has political implications that reach the Government Palace and target the Morena member Rubén Rocha Moya, who has sought shelter in the federal government and in the federal legislators of Morena while his state is adrift, the capital has been without municipal police, the tourist center of Mazatlán is in decline and the population continues to be subjected to the clashes between both sides of the historic cartel.
Just like 16 years ago, the battle was due to a betrayal that resulted in the surrender of one of the leaders, Alfredo Beltrán Leyva, El Mochomo, after an operation carried out on January 21, 2008 by the now defunct Federal Investigation Agency (AFI) in Culiacán.
In retaliation, the Beltrán Leyvas murdered Edgar Guzmán López, son of El Chapo, near a shopping center on May 8 of that same year. More than 500 shots were fired at the scene, including projectiles launched by bazookas.
In 2024, the clash began with the reported kidnapping of El Mayo at the hands of Joaquín Guzmán López, in a meeting where the capo and the son of El Chapo would be mediators of the conflict between Governor Rubén Rocha Moya and former rector Héctor Melesio Cuén Ojeda, murdered during that meeting on July 25, as Zambada García himself made public.
The events unleashed a war that is being experienced differently in Culiacán, besieged by armed groups and military convoys, compared to the experience of two moments called Black Thursdays or “culiacanazos” in October 2019 and January 2023, where the federal government carried out operations to capture Ovidio Guzmán López, another of El Chapo’s sons currently on trial in the United States.
Now the internal war has locked people in their homes.
The siege on Culiacán has already lasted almost two months. All crime rates are on the rise, especially forced disappearances, which between September 1 and October 15 have left figures in Sinaloa that are still being calculated.
Search groups have files for almost 300 people who are victims of forced disappearance, while official figures from the Sinaloa Prosecutor’s Office have over 209; the National Registry for the Search of Missing and Unlocated Persons (RNPDNO) has 236 cases.
The site extends to a tourist jewel
In Mazatlán, one of the main destinations in the country and a source of income for the state, terror has also been a constant among the population. So much so that on the night of Sunday, October 27, the city council itself called on the population to take shelter from the shootings that broke out in the city.
That day, the death toll in the state totaled at least 30 people, bringing the official number of murders in this internal war to 200.
Security consultant Abel Jacobo Miller discusses the government’s actions in the face of this criminal control of the city. “Ungovernability is the same as a lack of government,” he explains.
Why is there ungovernability? It is very clear, no organized crime force has the military power that the State has, so why has it taken Sinaloa more than 30 days to control the violence in Culiacán and other municipalities in the state? I see an authority that is more reactive than proactive. I don’t know if that is the order from the central headquarters in Mexico City, but we are only seeing them react, that is a fact.
Jacobo Miller believes that this war could come to an end with the key arrest of one of the two sides. That was what happened during the 2008 confrontation. With the assassination of Arturo Beltrán Leyva in 2009…
Source: proceso
