The number of people vanishing in Sinaloa has doubled as two rival factions of a drug cartel wage a bloody battle for control of their criminal empire.
Since the bloody war began almost three months ago, more than 200 people have vanished in the state, according to official figures.
The feud started after the arrest in the US of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, and now the two factions are fighting for control of the cartel.
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It all kicked off after cartel kingpin El Mayo’s loyalists, known as “Los Mayos”, accused Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s son of betrayal, leading to a bloody fallout with the rival faction dubbed “Los Chapitos.”
Recently elected Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has had her first months in office overshadowed by the violence and has despatched her security chief, Omar García Harfuch, to Sinaloa state to quell the violence.
During a press conference earlier this week, Sheinbaum praised security forces for scoring a massive victory against the cartel’s drug empire. Authorities seized over a tonne of fentanyl pills, Mexico’s largest-ever haul of the deadly synthetic opioid, with a street value of a staggering $394 million (£309 million).
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She said: “This is an investigation that has been going on for a long time and yesterday, it gave these results. It is the largest seizure of fentanyl pills ever made.”
Mexico’s top security official, Omar García Harfuch, said on X: “These actions will continue until the violence diminishes in the state of Sinaloa.”
News of the massive fentanyl bust came just over a week after Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on goods coming from Mexico and Canada on day one of his presidency.
He said the tariffs would remain in place until “until such time as drugs, in particular fentanyl, and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country”.
Mexican officials also announced on Wednesday that they had detained more than 5,200 migrants across the country the previous day, in what appeared to be a response to President Sheinbaum’s promise to Trump to stop a migrant caravan moving north through Mexico from reaching the US border.
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