Military convoys are facing off against cartel forces in Mexico amid a bloodthirsty power grab for El Chapo’s former gang.
Western Mexico town Culiacan is known as the “capital of the Sinaloa cartel” and has seen daily gang killings, Sky reports.
Since kingpin Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada was apprehended by FBI agents in July this year, a grim struggle for power has gripped his former cartel, an organisation once headed by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
READ MORE: Drug lord El Mayo’s ‘calm’ arrest is a ‘Narco Game of Thrones cliffhanger’, says expert
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The once peaceful Culiacan now sees a regular military presence, as soldier-manned armoured vehicles patrol the streets and often engage in firefights with cartels. The fighting is mainly between gang members loyal to El Chapo, and those who support his former partner-in-crime, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
(Image: Sky News)
Cartel expert Miguel Angel Vega told Sky he couldn’t see this violent state of affairs ending any time soon.
“This will not end because this is a ferocious market, and a lot of money is involved, and people keep coming,” Vega said. “If someone is arrested or killed, someone else will step in, and they will take power, and I don’t think this will end, this will continue, definitely.”
According to Sky reporter Stuart Ramsay, the arms race between warring Sinaloa factions is so intense that different sides are also locked in a recruitment battle.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
“Abducting innocent young men and forcing them to fight is, we are told, becoming common,” Ramsay said.
A Culiacan resident told him El Chapo’s side has around 2,000 to 3,000 people, outnumbered by El Mayo’s forces that boast almost double.
When El Mayo “calmly” walked into the hands of FBI agents earlier this year, experts were left scratching their heads.
(Image: US DEPARTMENT OF STATE HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Speaking at the time to the Daily Star, cartel expert Dr Robert Bunker said: “The manner and intrigue behind the arrests were very much a blindside.”
Zambada could now be set to join El Chapo in jail, where the cartel leader has rotted since 2019. El Chapo and Zambada co-founded the organisation 1989, governing it to become the one of the most powerful drug-trafficking organisations in the world.
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