“HEARST” for Borderland Beat
Authorities brought four vehicles with mounted guns and a troop transport truck to a small town in rural Sinaloa. After soldiers were attacked and chased, they managed to find five vehicles, some which were worth more than $100k, which were all abandoned and left with their doors open.
Let’s look at the suspicious circumstances and how they may relate to the rumors of Mayito Flaco’s involvement.
There’s a rumor on the streets of Culiacan this week that Sinaloa Cartel’s Mayito Flaco was almost caught by soldiers in Lo de Clemente, a small town in Sinaloa.
Now, cartel-related rumors are usually untrue and it’s no mystery as to why. Cartel groups will sometimes seed rumors in order to muddy the waters and cast doubt on their rivals. Cartel fanboys are quick to spread misinformation and propaganda on social media if it makes a rival group look bad.
In many ways, there are more bad-faith actors than legitimate truth-seekers involved in the cartel rumor mill.
But here’s something that’s undoubtedly true: In Mexico, soldiers and law enforcement officers are regularly paid off by cartel groups.
This is not the talk of conspiracy theorists, it is more a fact of life.
When an important cartel figure is caught, he might offer the arresting police officers (or soldiers) a large sum of money in exchange for quietly releasing them and reporting that the capo got away.
It’s worth considering, if something like that happened, what kind of explanation would authorities give if the media questioned them about the incident?
And what type of illicit assets would a capo hand over to authorities so they seized it and walk away claiming to have “struck a blow against organized crime”?
The Attack
On June 20, 2023, something happened in Lo de Clemente.
The rural community is located in the municipality of Culiacan, in the state of Sinaloa. The town is so remote that there are no images of it on Google Images nor on Google Street View. Aerial images taken from Google Earth offer our only glimpse of it.
According to the official government version of events, a group of soldiers went out on a routine surveillance patrol in Lo de Clemente. At some point, they were attacked by a group of cartel hitmen.
The soldiers pursued after the hitmen and they reportedly requested back up from other law enforcement and military entities at 10:30 am.
The pursuit moved south, past El Salado, ending up near the towns of Tabalá and Bebelama. But somehow all the cartel members involved in the attack managed to evade capture.
Members of law enforcement arrived near Tabalá to help reinforce the soldiers but at that point the chase had already ended and the perpetrators had fled the area.
Eventually a number of photographers and journalists arrived. By that point the soldiers and police were making arrangements to tow a number of vehicles they had seized.
One reporter from Los Noticieristas, a local Sinaloa-based news publication, spotted the Undersecretary of State Security, Carlos Alberto Hernández Leyva, on scene and they asked him for an interview.
The following is a transcript of that interview:
Policeman: Look, there was an attack against the Army soldiers who were patrolling this sector. They were doing surveillance in Lo de Clemente, near the town of El Salado. When we were notified about the attack, we immediately mobilized to reinforce the soldiers and when we arrived here, which is near Tabalá, we found several vehicles. There are approximately five or six abandoned vehicles and we are trying to move through-
Journalist: Was there any reported theft?
Policeman: Eh no, not as of this moment. We have not seized any firearms. There are not any detainees either. The pickups were found abandoned. There are two vehicles which were carrying about 3.5 tons of chemical precursors.
Journalist: Are they [the vehicles] armored?
Journalist: Was there a pursuit?
Policeman: Yes, there was a pursuit. Unfortunately, it was not possible to capture anyone. There is a helicopter currently making surveillance flights overhead. They are the ones who made it possible for us to spot the vehicles.
Journalist: And were there shots fired?
Policeman: Eh, no, we don’t know of any shots fired by Army soldiers. I think there may have been shots fired but we haven’t been in contact with the commander in charge [of the soldiers] yet.
Journalist: When did this happen? The reporting of the incident…
Policeman: The report came at around 10:30 am.
Journalist: And you seized five or six vehicles, one of them armored?
Policeman: That is right, one of them was armored.
Journalist: Are all the vehicles on this dirt road?
Policeman: In this area, not exactly on this dirt road, but in this area, around here.
Journalist: And were any of the vehicles [which were seized] reported as stolen?
Policeman: We haven’t yet been able to establish if they were reported as stolen. We are trying to speed up-
Journalist: We saw black smoke coming from over there, but that has nothing to do with the operation, right?
Policeman: No, I don’t think so, we were over there and we didn’t see anything strange.
Journalist: Thank you.
Policeman: I’m at your service.
Authorities would later release details on the five vehicles which they seized. They were:
- White Nissan NP300 pickup truck, “tipo estacas” or with a fenced in truck bed
- White Ford F350 pickup truck, “tipo redilla” or with wooden stakes lining the back
- White Ford 350 XLT Super Duty pickup truck, “tipo redilla” or with wooden stakes lining the back
- White Nissan Frontier Platinum pickup truck
- Jeep Grand Cherokee, customized and heavily armored
3.5 tons of chemical precursors, along with drug lab equipment like drums and condensers were found inside the vehicles and seized.
No firearms or ammo were reportedly found. No soldiers or police officers were reportedly injured.
It is important to note that there were 3 military and 1 State Police vehicles with mounted guns photographed on scene. Additionally, a troop transport truck was also observed amongst the military vehicles.
Whether all these vehicles were a part of the initial “surveillance patrol” or if they arrived as reinforcements is unclear.
An article by Los Noticieristas added that –incredibly– all five of the vehicles which were seized by police were found not only unlocked but the vehicles were all “found with the doors left open.” This includes the white, armored Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV.
If you’re wondering how much the armored SUV is worth, there are a few cost estimates online that we can go off.
In Mexico, the company Jeep itself sells a version of their Grand Cherokee that is armored. In 2020, it was reported that their armored vehicle sold for about $86,000 USD – which is about $100,000 USD in 2023 after adjusting for inflation.
Los Noticieristas, however, described the seized Grand Cherokee as having “blindaje artisanal” or custom armor, which implies it was not the manufacturer’s default armored variant. Based on this, we can safely assume the Grand Cherokee was worth more than $100,000.
It might be worth asking, how often do we see news about an undamaged vehicle worth $100,000 USD being found abandoned and with the doors left open right after being chased by authorities?
“The Suspension of Disbelief”
That’s the term used to describe our willingness to believe improbable or unusual things happened – it’s the subconscious choice to not think critically about the likelihood of a story and instead accept it. The term is usually used when discussing works of fiction. Its rarely brought up with non-fiction, or the official government version of events for a military incident.
But the suspension of disbelief always had its limits. If a story is alleged to take place in “the real world”, a reader tends to accept that maybe one or two highly improbable things might happen. Coincidences are a part of life, after all.
But if highly improbable things keep happening and happening within a story, our suspension of disbelief begins to fade.
The official government version of events is asking for us to believe that:
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Army soldiers were attacked by a group of hostile cartel members and, after pursuing them across multiple towns, the soldiers were able to nab five vehicles from the attackers but none of the attackers themselves.
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The cartel members chose to abandon five functional vehicles, some of which were worth over $100,000 USD, leaving their doors open.
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Despite the incident beginning with an alleged shooting, no ammo, firearms, or tactical equipment (like body armor) were found in any of the five vehicles.
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None of the soldiers or police officers were injured in the initial attack or the ensuing pursuit.
- The military utilized three mounted gun vehicles and a troop transport, either as part of a routine surveillance patrol through a rural area, or as reinforcements to support the attacked soldiers. (All of the vehicles being available and in the general area of the incident is just happenstance.)
Any one of these unusual things could happen. A couple of these could happen in one given incident. But the official version of events is asking us to believe that all five of these things happened in the course of one single incident.
Now, even if we have reason to be skeptical of the explanation by authorities, it doesn’t mean the rumored version of events is necessarily true either. There are a number of other explanations that don’t involve Mayito Flaco.
A lesser capo, such as any of his direct reports or a regional jefe, could have been found and made a deal.
Soldiers might have found an important drug lab but their military commander told them an arrangement was made to only hand over a few truck loads of precursor chemicals.
There are endless possibilities as to what might have happened.
But here is what we can be certain about: this story isn’t getting traction in the Mexican press for a reason and on June 20, 2023, something happened in Lo de Clemente.
Twitter account Kira 141 posted about the El Salado attack and alleged that Mayito Flaco was responsible. The account then posted an alleged image of Mayito Flaco.
Based on a side by side comparison (shown below) Kira’s image is likely an AI generated “enhancement” of an older, low resolution image of Flaco.
The low resolution image was first seen in an intelligence document which was leaked by Guacamaya and published by Contralinea in January 2023. These documents were covered in more detail in The Unseen Faces of CDS: Part 1 and Part 2.
Now, it is always possible that Kira141 has access to the original photo of Mayito Flaco which was used in the intelligence document. However, there are several strange sections of the photo which may indicate it was AI generated.
For example, take note of the unusual placement of the blue shirt which seemingly crawls above his shoulder, onto his face. Also note the blurring of the lower section of the photo.
It’s important to make clear when these AI tools have been used because the details the AI fills in may not be accurate to the real person’s appearance. It is best practice to include a disclaimer about their use when publishing such images.
Sources: Milenio, Extra Oficial, Debate, Cafe Negro Portal, Kira141, Eco_1_LMV, Noroeste, Los Noticieristas Article 1, Article 2, Luz Noticias, Debate , TV Pacifico