An ongoing turf war between members of the Sinaloa Cartel and its once ally-turned-rival, the Caborca Cartel, has led to intense shootouts and multiple death threats. The threats include using a pig’s head and a funeral wreath, while others included a written message stuck to a victim’s chest with a knife.
The morbid threats first surfaced on Monday, soon after gunmen from the Sinaloa Cartel and the Caborca Cartel clashed in a series of firefights. The Caborca Cartel is an organization that was started by Rafael Caro Quintero — one of the founders of the Jalisco Cartel, the now-defunct organization that gave birth to the Sinaloa Cartel. Caro Quintero is currently jailed in Mexico fighting extradition to the U.S. in connection with the 1985 murder of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.
In one of the messages, gunmen left a funeral wreath with a message next to a pig’s head in Ciudad Obregon. In the message gunmen from the Carboca Cartel threatened a Mexican federal ministerial agent named Guillermo Aviles Encinas. The message called him a traitor and alleged the Sinaloa Cartel would not be able to protect him.
Colocan arreglo funerario con #NARCO mensaje en #CiudadObregón mencionan a un Lic. de nombre Guillermo, esto en calle Sinaloa y miguel Alemán pic.twitter.com/kMES2gJPMD
— Cajeme News (@CajemeNews) March 21, 2023
A second threat surfaced soon after the shootouts where Sinaloa Cartel gunmen from the Chapiza faction left a body with a written message stuck to the chest with a knife. The Chapiza is a name used by gunmen loyal to the sons of jailed kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera. In the message, the gunmen claimed that the dead man shot a teenager in a nearby avenue and that they would be targeting other rivals.
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“Este es uno de los que mató al muchacho de la calzada…. Caborca tiene dueño, pura Chapiza” pic.twitter.com/XDg2wjzNTc
— LaMasakr3 (@calvariae_locus) March 21, 2023
Just prior to the surfacing of the threats, the city of Caborca saw a series of shootouts that killed seven individuals and injured four others, the Sonora Public Security Board revealed. In the aftermath of the violence, authorities arrested two gunmen.
CABORCA EL DIA DE AYER pic.twitter.com/zfiMG0TRc1
— Cajeme News (@CajemeNews) March 20, 2023
The board, which is made up of several police and military entities, revealed that authorities seized ten vehicles used by cartel gunmen and recovered another one that had been taken by force from an innocent motorist. Authorities also seized 11 weapons.
The city of Caborca is on the northwestern part of Sonora and is tied to the two main highways that lead to the border cities of Sonoyta and Nogales, both well-known smuggling routes. Additionally, the desert areas between the two cities have a long history of being a busy smuggling corridor due to the remoteness of the areas, the lack of physical border barriers, the lack of patrolling, and the difficulty of the terrain which make it difficult for authorities to patrol.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to Mexico City and the states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and their original Spanish. This article was written by “C.P. Mireles” from Tamaulipas and “E.F. Robles” from Jalisco.