The kidnapping and subsequent surrender of Ismael to American authorities El Mayo Zambada of Joaquín Guzmán López, his former partner, drug capo Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, in July 2024 at Santa Teresa Airport in El Paso (Texas), was like a metaphor for chaos theory. This means that a small disturbance, like the aleteo of a moth, can cause disproportionate effects thousands of miles away. This betrayal within the Sinaloa Cartel sparked, a few months later, in September last year, a four-hour war between the heirs of the capos of a multi-billion dollar international empire generated by the trafficking of cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl and other illicit drugs. The war in that state caused a torrent of violence and bloodshed that continues a year later, during which 1,824 assassinations were recorded – triple the previous year – and around 800 disappeared. Although there are fewer and fewer important things on the table, due to the constant blows Los Chapitos has received from the federal government and the Trump administration in their war on narcotics, the violence is now beginning to reach a region that seems to enjoy no respite.
Three hieleras took place on Sunday morning in Libramiento Culiacán, the area that surrounds the capital of Sinaloa and connects Mazatlán to Los Mochis. The containers, which normally contain paper and would be used to store drinks at parties, are used to place, piece by piece, a man’s body. Your head, your arms, your hands, your legs, your torso. All cut as if it were a set design for horror films, but they are real.
Tradition has it that every December the Navidad and New Year celebrations begin, but in Sinaloa, especially in municipalities like Culiacán, Navolato, Eldorado, Elota, San Ignacio, Cosalá, Mazatlán, Concordia and Escuinapa, and therefore they have to wait. In 22 days, 126 people were murdered, including 7 women. Yarn data collected by EL PAÍS from various sources.
On the ground, these are people left in place, on the roads or inside homes, and faced with clashes and operations in different places, such as the three roadblocks in Escuinapa with clashes in the areas bordering Mazatlán, the second tourist capital in northwest Mexico, behind Los Cabos, in Baja California.
This new chapter in the war in Sinaloa now resonates at the National Palace. During the conference Mananera This month, President Claudia Sheinbaum addressed the escalation of violence and acknowledged that this weekend there was an increase in intentional homicides, particularly in Escuinapa.
“Ayer (Sunday) Hubo, especially in South Sinaloa, they’re stuck. And there’s been an average of 3.5 homicides daily and it’s a weekend where the homicides started,” I said. “The children can put children’s films on the truck’s screens so they don’t see the balaceras,” José María reported on December 17, while traveling on a bus that found itself in the middle of a road blockade.
“The train caught fire and stopped the bullet. First one adelante and one behind. Better for the driver to stay still and tell us that when we heard bullets we crouched down.” The warrant showed that Sinaloa was experiencing a situation of “great tranquility” which led to the handover of El Mayo to the United States and the rupture that occurred in the criminal group that operates in this region, caused by this situation which, according to Sheinbaum, did not become clear with the American government.
The warrant contained a clear reference to the testimony of Guzmán López, who, in his confession of guilt for drug trafficking and organized crime in Chicago last December 1, told the magistrate how he was arrested and handed over to the DEA and the FBI for 77 years. El Mayo, who remained on the run for more than 50 years amid a $15 million bounty on his head, had never been to prison during his criminal life. In the document, the 39-year-old narco assures that the United States government “does not request, incite, sanction, approve or tolerate kidnapping.”
The testimony of Guzmán López revived several unknowns and left few traces of the intervention of the United States in this operation. And this, despite the fact that Casa Blanca denied any form of participation in the National Palace in Mexico, both the previous government and the current one insisted that it was Washington that had to provide answers.
The northern state has since been rebased by war between two organized crime families. Independence Day celebrations last September were canceled for the second year in a row due to the massacres, killings and destruction of establishments that occurred more than a year ago.
The state General Tax Office reported there were 109 murders in November; in October, 130; September 121; August 119; in July, 170. The trend indicated a decrease. “The reduction in homicides is positive,” says Governor Rubén Rocha Moya.
However, on the eighth day of the end of 2025, 126 murders were committed, which will mark the third bloodiest year in Sinaloa’s recent history, comparable to the times of the appeal. war on drugs during Felipe Calderón’s six-year term.
The crossfire between the factions also generated a spike in disappearances last year with a dominant boss: a 40-year-old man from Culiacán. During a 15-month period, at least 3,304 people disappeared, according to data from the State General Tax Office obtained through transparency. This information also makes it possible to recognize that the main victims are young people from urban areas.
In 2025, there are 2,398 cases, including 393 women, 1,997 men and eight people without specifying gender, but more than 60% of cases correspond to people between 18 and 39 years old. In 2024, 1,269 cases were recorded, compared to 925 in 2023. In just two years, the number of cases has almost tripled and records have surpassed those of people murdered.
The battle did not give in despite Los Chapitos being against the rocks. Arrested, liquidated, extradited to the United States or voluntarily handed over to the justice of the previous country as part of agreements aimed at reducing sentences or avoiding aranceles, this faction of the Sinaloa cartel is worried about a possible disappearance. Only their leaders, Iván Archivaldo Guzmán and his brother Jesús Alfredo, survive the refugees, increasingly surrounded by Mexican security services, who announce the next day new captures and deaths of drug traffickers whom Washington has identified as one of the main culprits of the fentanyl boom.
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