“Sol Prendido” for Borderland Beat
The administration of David Monreal Ávila in the state of Zacatecas, which began in September 2021, has been defined by a spiral of violence that security institutions have failed to contain. During this period, the state has solidified its position as a strategic corridor for drug trafficking toward the northern border—an area fiercely contested by the “Los Mayos” faction of the Sinaloa Cartel (CDS) and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG)—while the situation has evolved to include systematic extortion of productive sectors and collusion among public officials.
Monreal Ávila’s tenure—which began after three previous electoral bids and follows his time as mayor of Fresnillo and as a senator—faces scrutiny regarding the effectiveness of his strategy in the face of crimes targeting the economic and political elite. His administration is marked by a structural inability to guarantee public order, having inherited and deepened a crisis characterized by constant homicides and the public display of corpses. The criminal phenomenon has shifted from isolated clashes between cells to what some analysts call “financial terrorism,” wherein organized crime pressures businesses by demanding protection payments (*derecho de piso*).
The discovery of ten bodies in July 2026 across the municipalities of Pánuco, Morelos, and Sain Alto is the latest event exposing the vulnerability of state public security, despite intermittent deployments of federal forces and the creation of the State Peace-Building Roundtable. This mass killing—perpetrated with the signature method of death by strangulation—claimed the lives of former mayors and sitting officials, demonstrating that no one in Zacatecas is safe and debunking the official narrative of pacification.
The State’s response has been reactive, limited to deploying Army Special Forces and the National Guard only after the atrocities have already been committed. At the same time, federal and state governments face political communication challenges stemming from the dissemination of messages attributed to the Sinaloa Cartel—alleging broken pacts by the Monreal administration—claims that the security cabinet dismisses as destabilizing fabrications.
The paradox of Zacatecas lies in its statistical indicators; while the July 2026 National Survey of Urban Public Security (ENSU) suggests an improvement in public perception in Fresnillo, the reality on federal highways 45 and 54—as well as in unmonitored municipalities like Pánuco and Sombrerete—reflects absolute territorial control by the cartels. This security failure is also a failure of governance, with the prosecutor’s office now investigating the collusion of local public officials with criminal networks, while the U.S. government’s Level 4 travel advisory warns its citizens against overland travel in the state due to the risk of kidnapping.
The bloody chronology of the Monreal administration—which began with bodies hung in public view in 2021, continued with massacres in the historic center outside the Government Palace in January 2022, and persists with further criminal incidents—defines a six-year term in which statistical pretense clashes head-on with the brutality of reality.
BUSINESS LEADERS IN THE SPOTLIGHT
The massacre that took place on July 18, 2026, represents a direct attack on Zacatecas’s economic structure, targeting social and political figures primarily linked to the municipality of Fresnillo—the home region of the Monreal family. The ten victims disappeared between July 16 and 17 after receiving calls to attend what were purported to be private meetings. The bodies were discovered at three separate locations, revealing the logistics of organized crime: five victims were found hanging from a highway overpass on the Zacatecas–Saltillo highway, near the community of Pozo de Gamboa in the municipality of Pánuco. Four additional bodies were left on a public road in the municipality of Morelos, and the tenth was found on a stretch of highway in Saín Alto.
Among the deceased was Ignacio Castrejón Valdez, a construction entrepreneur, CEO of the company CAVI, and former mayor of Sombrerete (2016–2018), who had reportedly been kidnapped the day before his body was found. Also among the victims were Fidel Alvarado de la Torre, the Secretary of Social Development for the Fresnillo municipal government, and Jesús Gerardo Muñetón Hernández, a member of the same municipality’s Fire and Civil Protection Department. The list of victims included Andrés Vázquez Gurrola, a former city councilor and former Director of Public Security in Canatlán, Durango, and José Ángel Valdez Rivera, a prominent rancher from Jiménez del Teúl de González Ortega.
Forensic reports revealed that eight of the victims died from asphyxiation due to strangulation—a technique the Sinaloa Cartel has historically used in the state to mark its executions. Two additional victims died from gunshot wounds. A detail that sparked controversy was the toxicology results, which tested positive for narcotics in five of the bodies—including those of the Fresnillo officials—information that Prosecutor Cristian Paul Camacho made public during the investigation. The motive for the crime centers on two main aspects: a massive extortion network operating under a “protection racket” scheme and the collusion of local public officials. Rodrigo Reyes Mugüerza, the Secretary General of Government, confirmed that five of the victims were legitimate business owners in the construction, mining, and livestock sectors.
This incident forced business associations to suspend nighttime logistical transport and demand increased security measures on highways bordering Durango and Coahuila. The massacre not only eliminated prominent regional figures but also exposed the business community’s vulnerability to what is known as “financial terrorism,” a situation where cartel control stifles lawful economic activity. Governor David Monreal Ávila described the events as barbaric, though he faced criticism for noting that the lack of prior reports regarding the disappearances had hindered an effective police response. The Prosecutor’s Office has initiated financial audits and the freezing of bank accounts in Fresnillo, identified as the epicenter of the extortion network that led to these executions.
THE CDS SIGNATURE
Investigations and direct messages from criminal groups point to the faction led by Ismael Zambada Sicairos—alias “El Mayito Flaco”—as responsible for the mass killing in July 2026. This cell, identified as CDS-MF (Sinaloa Cartel – Mayo Flaco Faction), maintains dominance in the northern and central parts of the state, where it contests territory with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. On July 20, 2026, a video message circulated in which a group of about twenty armed, masked men claimed responsibility for the execution of ten people, stating that it was a “hit” ordered against those who fail to honor agreements.
In the video, the criminal organization directly accused Governor David Monreal of breaking prior pacts and threatened his family, asserting that “betrayal in politics costs lives.” Although the federal security cabinet and the state government dismissed the footage as a staged event featuring dubbed audio intended to sow political instability, arrests made during “Operation Rastrillo” confirmed the Sinaloa Cartel’s active presence in the area where the crime occurred.
On July 21, state and federal forces arrested three individuals on a dirt road in Fresnillo: Leonel N. (23, from Mazatlán), Oswaldo N. (22, from Durango), and a 16-year-old female minor from Jerez. Identified as key drivers of violence, the group was found in possession of 113 packets of methamphetamine, six magazines for .223-caliber rifles, ballistic vests, and 40 metal tire-puncturing spikes. Days later, authorities reported the arrests of América Yael N. and Carlos Daniel N., both of whom stated they were active members of the same organization that had claimed responsibility for the massacre. Formal charges against the accused include aggravated homicide, kidnapping, criminal conspiracy, and possession of firearms reserved for exclusive military use.
The Sinaloa Cartel’s territorial control over municipalities such as Fresnillo, Sombrerete, and Pánuco has enabled it to establish a surveillance and extortion network that operates with impunity across rural areas. Following the massacre, the Federal Government ordered the deployment of 100 Special Forces troops from the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) to capture high-priority targets from the CDS-MF, supplementing the more than 500 National Guard personnel already deployed along federal highways 45 and 49. The criminal group has issued a direct challenge to General Porfirio Fuentes Vélez, asserting that they are undeterred by the military deployment.
The Zacatecas Attorney General’s Office is analyzing ballistic evidence and video footage to link the detainees to the logistics behind the dumping of bodies on the Pánuco bridge and in the streets of Morelos.
AN INCOMPETENT GOVERNMENT
David Monreal Ávila’s administration began under the shadow of extreme violence and has remained on that same path throughout his six-year term. On January 6, 2022—barely four months after he took office—ten bodies (eight men and two women) were left inside a Mazda SUV in front of the Government Palace, beneath the Christmas tree in the Plaza de Armas. This act was interpreted as a direct challenge to the seat of state power. The governor responded by claiming the situation was a legacy of past administrations and urged people to “entrust themselves to God,” while announcing arrests for which no clear details were ever provided.
A grim chronology of atrocities has unfolded in Zacatecas since Monreal Ávila assumed the governorship. In November 2021, the state saw a series of executions bearing the hallmark of “hanging” victims: ten people were found in Ciudad Cuauhtémoc—nine of them hanging from a vehicular overpass—while days earlier, three other bodies had been found hanging from trees in Loreto. In total, Zacatecas recorded 1,652 homicides in 2021; at least 42 of the victims were displayed hanging from bridges or trees—a signature tactic of the Sinaloa Cartel in its conflict with the CJNG. Government incompetence was further exposed on September 27, 2023, when six of seven youths aged 14 to 18—who had been kidnapped in Malpaso, Villanueva—were found dead in the community of La Soledad following days of aerial searches.
Violence has shown no signs of abating throughout 2026: on February 11, two businesspeople from San Luis Potosí were found dead in Pinos; on April 10, armed clashes paralyzed García de la Cadena, leaving one person dead and police patrol vehicles riddled with bullets; and on May 18, improvised explosive devices—planted to target security convoys—were neutralized on Federal Highway 54. The kidnapping of Gustavo Domínguez, the former director of the Investigative Police, in May 2026, and the assassination of former Fresnillo Mayor Benjamín Medrano Quezada in Guadalajara on July 7, 2026, confirm that political figures and former public officials remain under constant threat. Medrano Quezada, who governed Fresnillo from 2013 to 2015, was shot in the face and killed while at an ice cream shop, despite having an outstanding arrest warrant against him in Zacatecas.
The Monreal administration has seen a succession of security secretaries—such as Arturo López Bazán and General Adolfo Marín Marín—yet the pacification strategy has failed to yield tangible results in reducing mass killings. The situation has triggered forced displacement in Valparaíso and Jerez, turning entire communities into ghost towns due to fear and the absence of an authority capable of responding to the onslaught of criminal activity.
PERCEPTION
Data from the National Survey of Urban Public Security (ENSU), published on July 24, 2026, reveal a statistical paradox that the state government is touting as a sign of success. According to the National Institute of Statistics, Geography, and Informatics (INEGI), the municipality of Fresnillo recorded a drop in the perception of insecurity, falling from 86.7 percent in June 2025 to 73 percent in June 2026. This figure allowed Fresnillo to drop out of the top five spots nationwide for citizen fear—a position it had held for years—landing instead at number 21.
However, civil society views this decline as a mirage, given that seven out of ten Fresnillo residents still report feeling unsafe—a figure that remains above the national average of 59.8 percent. Furthermore, the INEGI report itself notes that Fresnillo experienced the country’s largest increase in conflicts and direct confrontations among the population, jumping from 10.5 percent to 27.4 percent, which suggests a breakdown of the social fabric. The perception of improvement is limited to the urban areas being monitored; municipalities that have been epicenters of recent violence—such as Sombrerete, Pánuco, Jerez, or Sain Alto—are not individually measured by the ENSU because their population densities don’t meet the criteria for major urban centers.
On the other hand, the metropolitan area comprising the state capital, Zacatecas, and Guadalupe recorded an increase in citizen fear, reaching 75.9 percent and placing 16th in the national ranking of cities with the highest levels of fear. There is a stark contrast between the survey results and reality, as the INEGI measurement was taken in June 2026—just weeks before the July massacre of ten businesspeople and officials, an event that shattered any sense of security in the region. Business associations have contradicted these statistical improvements through concrete actions, such as suspending logistical transport operations and demanding armored highway security in response to persistent robberies and kidnappings on the federal routes connecting to Durango and Coahuila. The state prosecutor’s office has also had to intervene in the Fresnillo municipal government to investigate official collusion in extortion networks, confirming that the danger hasn’t vanished but has instead become institutionalized. Zacatecas remains on the U.S. government’s “red list” with a Level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory—a classification it shares only with states experiencing open warfare, such as Tamaulipas and Sinaloa—thereby invalidating any narrative of normalcy based solely on survey-based perceptions.
Source: Zeta Tijuana