Over 30 killed in Mexico cartel stronghold as violence rages after Sinaloa leaders detained in U.S.

Eleven more people have been killed in a wave of violence in a Mexican cartel heartland shaken by gang infighting, authorities said Sunday.

The latest fatalities included five men whose bodies were found on a highway south of the city of Culiacan, the Sinaloa state prosecutor’s office said in a daily update.

More than 30 people have been reported dead in a week of bloodshed in Sinaloa, although authorities did not specify how many were believed to be linked to the cartel infighting.

The clashes follow the dramatic arrest on U.S. soil on July 25 of Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who claimed he had been kidnapped in Mexico and delivered into US custody against his will. Zambada pleaded not guilty last week in New York in a drug trafficking case that accuses him of engaging in murder plots and ordering torture.

Zambada, 76, was detained along with Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of El Chapo, who is serving a life sentence in the United States.

The violence is believed to pit gang members loyal to El Chapo and his sons against others aligned with Zambada, who pleaded not guilty to a raft of charges in a New York court Friday.

Schools were closed Thursday and Friday due to the violence and the governor said Sunday’s Independence Day festivities had been canceled.

The United States on Thursday issued a security alert because of “reports of car thefts, gunfire, security forces operations, roadblocks, burning vehicles and closed roadways” in the vicinity of Culiacan.

In an unexpected twist, last month Mexican prosecutors said they were bringing charges against Guzmán for apparently kidnapping Zambada — but it also cited another charge under an article of Mexico’s criminal code that defines what he did as treason.

Nowhere in the statement does it mention that the younger Guzmán was a member of the Chapitos — “little Chapos” — faction of the Sinaloa cartel, made up of Chapo’s sons, that smuggles millions of doses of the deadly opioid fentanyl into the United States, causing about 70,000 overdose deaths each year. According to a 2023 indictment by the U.S. Justice Department, the Chapitos and their cartel associates used corkscrews, electrocution and hot chiles to torture their rivals while some of their victims were “fed dead or alive to tigers.”

El Chapo, the Sinaloa cartel’s founder, is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado after being convicted in 2019 on charges including drug trafficking, money laundering and weapons-related offenses.

Last year, El Chapo sent an “SOS” message to Mexico’s president, alleging that he has been subjected to “psychological torment” in prison.