Mexico’s criminal landscape may be on the brink of a profound transformation as the ongoing war between two rival factions of the Sinaloa Cartel threatens to split the group in two, according to a new report.
The group’s two main leaders are currently in US prison. Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias “El Chapo,” has been behind bars since 2017. Ismael Zambada Garcia, alias “El Mayo,” was arrested in July 2024 alongside one of El Chapo’s sons, Joaquín Guzmán López. Though the details remain unconfirmed, El Mayo accused the younger Guzmán of tricking him and helping coordinate his arrest. This alleged betrayal sparked a war between the Chapitos and the Mayiza factions, led by sons of the former capos.
SEE ALSO: A Cold War Is Raging Inside the Sinaloa Cartel Following El Mayo’s Capture
In a recent report titled, “How the Sinaloa Cartel’s Rift is Redrawing Mexico’s Criminal Map,” the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) examined cases of gang-on-gang violence and state-criminal clashes in the context of the ongoing war. InSight Crime, which maintains a data-sharing partnership with ACLED and consulted on the report, spoke with the authors, Sandra Pellegrini and Maria Fernanda Arocha, to explore what their data-based analysis suggests about the group’s future.
InSight Crime (IC): Where is the violence concentrated, and what does that tell us about the criminal conflict that is occurring?
Maria Fernanda Arocha (MFA): Most of the violence is concentrated in the places where we know that the Sinaloa Cartel and factions have traditionally had a presence: mainly Sinaloa and other states at the northwestern border with the United States that have been the group’s stronghold.
Sandra Pellegrini (SP): There’s violence that is linked to these internal disputes, and there’s also violence linked to how rival criminal groups are reacting to the rift within the Sinaloa Cartel. For instance, in the state of Sonora, there is violence related to the internal war within the Sinaloa Cartel, and also rival criminal groups trying to take advantage of the situation to expand their own territories.
We haven’t necessarily seen a major and significant expansion from rival criminal groups such as the Jalisco Cartel New Generation, but rather spikes in violence in very localized and strategic areas. One of them has been Tijuana, where there are several criminal organizations present: the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation, and the Tijuana Cartel.
But there are also other more localized and regional groups taking advantage of the situation. In Sonora, we see spikes in violence from Sonora’s independent cartels. And likewise in Chihuahua, in the northern area, there has been a spike in violence, especially around the municipality of Guadalupe as part of La Linea’s fight with the Salgueros, a Sinaloa-affiliated group.
IC: Is this the end of the Sinaloa Cartel as we know it — as it has been?
MFA: It has transformed — we cannot compare it to the monolithic organization it was at the beginning. Now what we are seeing is a complex criminal network that maintains a system of alliances and mechanisms, which, when they cooperate, can manage their businesses and maintain low levels of violence. I don’t know if we can say the main organization still exists, but for sure, there is still a network of traditional families that have always controlled the area. It will depend on the alliances. We see that the Mayos are looking for support from their traditional allies or making new alliances with groups that already operate in the region. The Chapitos might be looking for the support of another bigger group that is an outsider. There will definitely be some transformation.
IC: What has been the government’s response to this violence? How effective has it been?
SP: We have seen a strong government reaction to the violence in Sinaloa. We have recorded a 33% overall increase in gang versus security forces clashes. That’s something we have seen across the country, but especially in the state of Sinaloa.
We have also started recording operations targeting criminal assets, the destruction of drug producing laboratories, as well as camera or surveillance systems. The destruction of criminal assets really started to pick up in January, clearly due to US pressure on Mexico, whether through the designations of foreign terrorist organizations or the threats of trade tariffs.
Whether they’re effective, I think it’s still very early to say. At least in the case of Sinaloa, there was a slight decrease in gang and civilian targeting for the first quarter of 2025. That being said, there are other reports that forced disappearances and other forms of criminal activity have been picking up. So, is it really effective? It might be showing that criminal groups have been adapting and either starting to maintain a low profile in light of the heightened scrutiny since being declared foreign terrorist organizations. We’re probably going to see more of organized crime maintaining a low profile.
SEE ALSO: Experts Say US Aid Slashes Will Hinder Anti-Drug and Crime Efforts in Latam
MFA: And the report only covers up until March. April actually saw a spike in violence against civilians and gang clashes, which shows that perhaps it has not been that effective. But it’s very early to tell.
SP: There have also been concerns about the rise in the arrests of criminal operators. A lot of people are saying it is a repeat of the kingpin strategy, that essentially consists of targeting high-profile cartel leaders to affect the overall structure of a criminal group. And we know that in the long run, this is not the most efficient way to fight organized crime, and contributes to fragmented criminal landscapes, which leads to more violence. It’s important to look at the security response not just as a response to organized crime violence, but also as an active driver in the changing landscapes. For instance, if they’re going to focus on the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, what is going to happen to the dynamics with other local groups? Are they going to take advantage of the fact that larger organizations are forced to go under? So, again, it’s not just the rivalries and the fragmentation of the cartel that right now is leading to a change in the landscapes, it’s also how the government is shaping its security response.
All the changes we’re seeing now have broader repercussions for the national landscape. If you look at gang-on-gang clashes and civilian targeting in the rest of the country, excluding Sinaloa, violence has been rising in the first quarter compared to the last quarter of 2024. So again, the security response focused on specific areas also gives some kind of leeway for other conflicts that are still ongoing in the background in other regions to come to the fore. It’s really important that we keep an eye on what’s happening there while the security response is focusing elsewhere. We’ll only be able to see the full breadth of this change over several years.
Featured Image: A bulletin board in Culiacán, Mexico featuring signs for missing people. Credit: Victoria Dittmar