At least 17 men and three women were rescued Sunday by the army and National Guard in an industrial area in Culiacan called Piggy Back. The discovery surprised the Sinaloa capital because all of the kidnapped people were reported missing. Their identities have not been made public, but they were released after a night of extreme violence in the state, with even criminal groups dropping bombs from drones.
According to the Sinaloa State Public Security Secretariat, in addition to the twenty people, weapons, ammunition, tactical vests, signal-suppressing antennas and doses of marijuana were found at the site. No one has been arrested yet, according to the local agency report.
This rescue was a relief in the context of non-stop violence in Sinaloa. The 20 people were rescued alive and can now be expunged from the register of 4,000 missing persons in the state over the past 14 months. This is the number reached since the start of the confrontation between the two factions of the Sinaloa Cartel, one led by Ivan Archivaldo Guzman, the eldest son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman, and the other led by Ismael Zambada Sicairos, known as Maito Flaco, the son of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
The children of those who were partners and complicit in the production and trafficking of drugs and weapons are now fighting for control of Sinaloa territory, where they have already expanded their illegal businesses into the real estate, logging and mining market. The conflict has so far left three thousand people dead, including those killed by the army and the National Guard, according to official reports.
Hours before 20 people were rescued in the capital’s industrial zone, a bomb attack dropped by drones was recorded in a banquet hall in Villa Juarez. This agricultural town, populated mostly by immigrants, is located about 15 kilometers from the city of Culiacan. The attack, which was a direct attack on an event where a 15th birthday party was being held, resulted in 10 people being injured. No criminal group claimed responsibility for the event, but in propaganda taking place in WhatsApp and Telegram groups, both factions admitted that people within the party had nothing to do with their fight.
On Saturday night, five men were also recorded killed by the army in El Guasimal, a town north of Culiacan. Nine men were also arrested there, one of them a French national and the others from Jalisco and Sinaloa. According to reports from residents of that area, the men were wearing jackets bearing the letters CJNG, a reference to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, but this has not been confirmed by the authorities nor in photos shared with the press.
Rescue operations, attacks and confrontations with the military have become part of the new normal in Sinaloa, especially in the capital, where civic and human rights organizations have raised their voices to demand a Sinaloa plan, similar to the plan announced for Michoacán after the killing of Carlos Manzo, the mayor of Uruapan.
The Sinaloa government stated that the operation has also been in effect locally since September 2024, although this has not helped reduce the violence. According to the Sinaloa Civic Organization, the violence has caused at least 9 out of 20 municipalities in Sinaloa – Concordia, Chuix, Badiraguato, San Ignacio, Navolato, Esquinapa, Cosala, Rosario and Sinaloa – to become zones of complete silence, due to the mass displacement of people, and the lack of journalists and activists who can document what is happening in those areas.
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