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The Herald Scotland
12-07-2025
- The Herald Scotland
El Chapo's son pleads guilty in connection with running Sinaloa Cartel
Guzman's guilty plea in Chicago comes at a point where the level of violence the Chapitos unleashed continues to dominate Sinaloa. Mexican authorities recently found twenty bodies, including several that were decapitated and four that were left hanging from a bridge over a highway. They appeared to be victims of a turf war between the Chapitos and rival Sinaloa faction La Mayiza. Authorities hope Guzman Lopez's plea deal will help pave the way to further prosecution of the Chapitos and the Sinaloa cartel as a whole, experts say. It's unclear what information "El Raton" or "the Mouse" as he is known has agreed to share. "This is obviously a hugely symbolic case for the United States, U.S. prosecutors have made the Chapitos a top priority for years," said Parker Asmann, a Sinaloa Cartel expert with organized crime research group InSight Crime. "Securing his cooperation could mean they could undermine the drug trade and attack corruption in Mexico they want to target." Guzman Lopez admitted to four charges: two stemming from an indictment in Illinois and two from an indictment out of New York. The charges included international drug trafficking and engaging in a criminal enterprise. The judge delayed sentencing to a later date, but prosecutors and defense attorneys said Guzman Lopez could potentially face life in prison and have to forfeit $80 million.
USA Today
11-07-2025
- USA Today
Son of El Chapo pleads guilty in connection with running Sinaloa Cartel
It's expected that Ovidio Guzmán López's guilty plea agreement will pave the way to further federal prosecution of Sinaloa Cartel members. The deal comes amid a bloody turf war in Mexico. CHICAGO – A son of Mexican drug lord "El Chapo" who oversaw drug shipments for his father and then took over one of the Sinaloa Cartel's most vicious factions after El Chapo's arrest, pleaded guilty in federal court on July 11. Ovidio Guzmán López, one of the Chapitos or four sons of El Chapo, admitted to his role in the notorious cartel's drug trafficking operation at the Dirksen federal courthouse in downtown Chicago, a city where cartel members made key inroads with local dealers. The Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel became known for discarding the few rules their father followed in order to dominate the illegal drug trade, according to experts. Guzmán's guilty plea in Chicago comes at a point where the level of violence the Chapitos unleashed continues to dominate Sinaloa. Mexican authorities recently found twenty bodies, including several that were decapitated and four that were left hanging from a bridge over a highway. They appeared to be victims of a turf war between the Chapitos and rival Sinaloa faction La Mayiza. Authorities hope Guzmán's plea deal will help pave the way to further prosecution of the Chapitos and the Sinaloa cartel as a whole, experts say. It's unclear what information "El Ratón" or "the Mouse" as he is known has agreed to share.
Daily Mail
05-07-2025
- Daily Mail
Bloodbath cartel violence worse than ever in Mexico with beheaded bodies hanging from bridges, mass shootings and a 'extermination camps' with ovens for disposing of the dead
Mexico 's brutal cartel war has exploded into a new era of horror. In recent times, beheaded corpses have been left dangling from bridges, charred bones have been found in underground ovens and innocent civilians gunned down at religious festivals. Once confined to remote borderlands, the carnage is now brazen, public, and unrelenting, leaving Mexican streets soaked in blood. In the last year, the country has been rocked by a wave of cartel atrocities so extreme, officials and investigators are calling them 'extermination campaigns'. One of the most shocking scene came just days ago, on June 30, in the cartel stronghold of Culiacán, Sinaloa, the home of Joaquín ' El Chapo ' Guzmán's former empire. Twenty corpses were discovered, including four beheaded men hanging from a highway overpass, their heads stuffed in black bags and dumped nearby. The remaining 16 victims were found crammed into a van, many executed with close-range shots to the head. Investigators believe the killings were part of an internal war within the Sinaloa Cartel, between the sons of El Chapo, known as Los Chapitos, and the rival La Mayiza faction. A note, scrawled with the words 'WELCOME TO THE NEW SINALOA', was left at the scene as a warning to rivals to stay away The gruesome murders were not just to remove rivals - it was also to send a clear message to anyone trying to encroach on cartel territory. The power struggle between the factions erupted after the arrest of El Chapo back in 2016. It ended up splitting the cartel into different groups. That has resulted in constant violence between the members. Since September last year, more than 2,000 people have been reported murdered or missing in connection to the internal war. Grim discoveries like the ones in Sinaloa is not an isolated incident - in March, forensic teams made a discovery that chilled even hardened investigators. It was a secret compound near Teuchitlán, Jalisco, where the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) allegedly ran a full-scale 'extermination site'. Buried beneath Izaguirre ranch, authorities found three massive crematory ovens. They contained piles of charred human bones, and a haunting mountain of belongings - over 200 pairs of shoes, purses, belts, and even children's toys. Experts believe victims were kidnapped, tortured and burnt alive, or after being executed, to destroy evidence of mass killings. The chilling find was made on a ranch that has been secured by cops several months prior. When cops stormed the site, they arrested ten armed members of the cartel, and found three people who had been reported missing (two were being held hostage, while the third was dead, wrapped in plastic). José Murguía Santiago, the mayor of the nearby town, was also arrested in connection to the crimes. The ranch was also being used as a training centre for the cartel, who have now been declared a terrorist organisation by US president Donald Trump's administration. Several advocates in Mexico have raised concerns about cartel brutality. Two of them, a mother and son duo, were slaughtered in April this year after revealing what was going on at the ranch, which they called an 'extermination camp'. Maria del Carmen Morales, 43, and her son, Jamie Daniel Ramirez Morales, 26, were staunch advocates for missing people in Mexico. According to cops, 'a pair of men' targeted Daniel in Jalisco and when his mother stepped in to defend him, she was also set upon. Maria's other son went missing in February the previous year. She fought tirelessly to find out what had happened to him. Reports indicate that since 2010, 28 mothers have been killed while searching for their relatives. Just a few weeks after the ranch was discovered, authorities in Zapopan, a suburb of Guadalajara, unearthed 169 black bags at a construction site, all filled with dismembered human remains. So far, at least 34 victims have been identified through DNA. The bags were hidden near CJNG territory, where disappearances are widespread. Activists say families reported dozens of missing young people in the area in recent months. Despite the capture of some of its most ruthless leaders, the cartel remains one of Mexico's most feared criminal enterprises. After the news of the ranch broke, the country's president Claudia Sheinbaum, vowed to do more to strengthen laws relating to missing people. The bloodbath in March continued when the bodies of nine people who had vanished were found on a highway. They had been brutally hacked - a bag containing their hands was found alongside their remains. The bodies were dumped inside the trunk of a car abandoned on San Jose Miahuatlan, 175 miles south of Mexico City. Five of the nine were discovered underneath a tarp soaked with blood, while the remaining four were stuffed into the boot of the car. Local reports initially indicated that the bodies of the four women and five men were students from Tlaxcala who had gone to Oaxaca for a vacation. However, news outlet NVI Noticias alleged that the victims were members of the Los Zacapoaxtlas criminal gang. The car containing the remains, a grey Volkswagen Vento, was seen along the highway just three days after the students were reported missing. In May, investigators raided a ranch outside Colima City, uncovering a mass grave containing the remains of at least 42 people. The bodies showed signs of acid burns, blunt force trauma and ligature marks. Authorities say that when they arrived at the location, some of the bodies were still burning. Cartel enforcers are believed to have used the site to torture and eliminate rivals, before attempting to destroy the corpses with chemicals and fire. The killings were linked to the Jalisco cartel, which has turned Colima into one of Mexico's most dangerous states as it fights to dominate Pacific drug routes. In October last year, the town of Ojuelos, Jalisco, woke up to yet another horror - the decapitated bodies of five men dumped by a dirt road. Their heads were found in a separate sack, left beside a cardboard sign with a blood-soaked warning from CJNG. Locals said they heard screaming the night before, followed by cars speeding away. Police were called after plastic bags containing the body parts were discovered by drivers. Authorities immediately deduced that because the bodies were dumped in such a public place, as well as the sheer brutality of the killings, was a strong indication that the cartel was involved. Just last month, a festival celebrating the Nativity of Saint John in the city of Irapuato was plunged into chaos. As families gathered in Irapuato for a traditional nativity festival, heavily armed men pulled up in trucks and sprayed the crowd with bullets. Eleven people were killed in the horrifying attack, with 20 others injured, some critically. Plastic chairs, drums, and food trays were left drenched in blood. Afterwards, residents could be seen walking through the horror, with blood soaked streets and bullet holes in the walls. Witnesses say the gunmen didn't speak or issue demands. They simply shot and left. The gruesome nature of cartel assassinations is unmistakable. In January 2024, when workers showed up to a gas station in La Concordia, Chiapas, southern Mexico, to begin their shift, they were horrified at what they found. Hitmen had left a cooler with severed human heads and attached a note warning their rivals to 'stop hiding'. The workers initially believed the cooler contained vaccines for veterinary use, but were left petrified when they opened it, according to local media. The message found attached to the cooler was aimed at the CJNG, telling them they would soon suffer the same fate. It read: 'There's your s**t you bunch of pigs. The same thing is going to happen to all the polleros (smugglers) who generate money for the scourges of the CJNG and the f*****s of the Chiapas Cartel. 'Go out and fight you bunch of pigs, stop hiding under government skirt. Pure CDS.' Just hours before the find, the CJNG had reportedly left a body hanging from an overpass on the Tuxtla-Ocozocoaulta highway in a warning to the Sinaloa cartel. Mexico's official homicide count surpassed 30,000 in 2023, but activists believe the true death toll is far higher, especially with so many bodies disappearing into secret graves and cremation pits. By the end of 2023, there was more than 110,000 active cases of people who had disappeared without a trace. Exerts predict the number could be higher due to underreporting and unreliable data. Mexico's drug war is now dominated by some of the most brutal and dangerous cartels in history, whose violence has turned entire regions into blood-soaked battlegrounds. At the top of the list is the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), led by Nemecio 'El Mencho' Oseguera Cervantes. CJNG is considered Mexico's most powerful and ruthless cartel, feared for its military-style tactics and shocking public displays of cruelty. The cartel controls vital drug routes along the Pacific coast, especially in Jalisco and Colima, where their turf wars have left hundreds dead. The Sinaloa Cartel remains a heavyweight despite its internal splits. Sinaloa's grip on northern drug trafficking routes remains strong, but its ongoing violence continues to destabilise communities and threaten innocent lives. Although Mexico's president, Claudia Pardo has vowed to do more to tackle the cartel violence crisis, the issue still persists on a greater scale In Guanajuato, the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel has grown into a violent force in its own right. Known primarily for fuel theft and extortion, it has expanded through bloody confrontations with larger groups like CJNG. Smaller but vicious cartels like the Chiapas Cartel operate in southern Mexico, shocking communities with grisly killings and public warnings. Though smaller, their willingness to engage in extreme violence keeps them relevant in Mexico's cartel chaos. Together, these cartels among others have pushed Mexico into a new era of brutality, where civilians, students, and activists often become the victims of ruthless power struggles.
Fox News
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Twenty dead bodies discovered in Mexico, including corpses hanging from bridge
Mexican authorities said 20 dead bodies, including five decapitated corpses, were discovered in the cartel-plagued city of Culiacan on Monday. Four decapitated corpses were found hanging from a highway bridge leading out of the city. The bodies' heads were discovered nearby in a plastic bag, authorities said, according to the Associated Press. That same day, 16 additional dead bodies with gunshot wounds were found stuffed into a white van on the same freeway. Along with the corpses – one of which had also been decapitated – authorities found a note seemingly from one of the cartel groups. The contents of that note were not immediately disclosed, AP reported. Culiacan, which has around 1 million residents and is the capital of western Mexico's Sinaloa state, has been wrought by a war for control between two rival drug trafficking groups of the Sinaloa cartel – Los Chapitos and La Mayiza. Mexican authorities condemned the deadly acts on Monday. However, many Sinaloa residents say authorities no longer have control of the violence, according to AP. "Military and police forces are working together to reestablish total peace in Sinaloa," Feliciano Castro, Sinaloa government spokesperson, said in a statement on Monday. Last month, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Los Chapitos and designated it a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. In a statement at the time, the U.S. Treasury Department said the group facilitates the production and trafficking of fentanyl. "Los Chapitos is a powerful, hyperviolent faction of the Sinaloa cartel at the forefront of fentanyl trafficking in the United States," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last month. "At the Department of the Treasury, we are executing on President Trump's mandate to completely eliminate drug cartels and take on violent leaders like 'El Chapo's' children." Gunmen linked to the Sinaloa cartel were also involved in the Oct. 18, 2024, killing of U.S. Marine veteran Nicholas Quets in Sonora, Mexico. The Attorney General's Office of the State of Sinaloa did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
The Independent
01-07-2025
- The Independent
Bodies hang from bridge as Cartel violence leaves 20 dead in Mexico
The grim reality of Mexico's escalating cartel violence was underscored on Monday as four decapitated bodies were found hanging from a bridge in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state. This horrific discovery comes amidst a surge of bloodshed that has claimed nearly 20 lives in less than 24 hours, according to authorities. Culiacan has become the epicentre of a brutal power struggle between two factions of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel – Los Chapitos and La Mayiza. This internal conflict, which ignited last year, has plunged the city into a state of constant fear and violence. The city's streets bear daily witness to scattered corpses, homes riddled with bullets, and businesses forced to shutter their doors. Schools regularly close down during waves of violence, while masked young men on motorcycles are a constant, ominous presence, patrolling the main avenues. On Monday, Sinaloa state prosecutors said that four bodies were found dangling from the freeway bridge leading out of the city, their heads in a nearby plastic bag. On the same highway Monday, officials said they found 16 more male victims with gunshot wounds, packed into a white van, one of whom was decapitated. Authorities said the bodies were left with a note, apparently from one of the cartel factions, though the note's contents were not immediately disclosed. Feliciano Castro, Sinaloa government spokesperson, condemned the violent killings on Monday and said authorities needed to examine their strategy for tackling organized crime with the 'magnitude' of the violence seen. 'Military and police forces are working together to reestablish total peace in Sinaloa,' Castro said. Most in the western Mexico state, however, say authorities have lost control of the violence levels. A bloody power struggle erupted in September last year between two rival factions, pushing the city to a standstill. The war for territorial control was triggered by the dramatic kidnapping of the leader of one of the groups by a son of notorious capo Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán who then delivered him to U.S. authorities via a private plane. Since then, intense fighting between the heavily armed factions has become the new normal for civilians in Culiacan, a city which for years avoided the worst of Mexico 's violence in large part because the Sinaloa Cartel maintained such complete control.
