Los Chapitos Plaza Boss Executed In Front of Home in San Felipe, BC

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A man alleged to be the plaza boss of the town of San Felipe, in Baja California, who worked on behalf of Sinaloa Cartel’s Los Chapitos was executed outside his home earlier this week.

The Men Who Lie In Wait 

At approximately 9:21 pm on Monday, April 11, 2022, a man was attacked in front of a home in the Centro neighborhood of the town of San Felipe. The man was shot as he was on his way home and about to enter his residence, which was property #282 on Mar Caribe Avenue, when he was allegedly shot by hitmen who were inside a nearby white vehicle which had evidently been awaiting his arrival. 

A series of fourteen gunshots were heard and the man received seven serious gunshot wounds, located in parts of his body which included his face, chest and abdomen. A woman inside his home heard the gunfire and she exited the residence, worried for her son who was playing outside in the yard. At first she saw the attacker’s white compact vehicle, with tinted windows, speeding away from the area.

Her neighbor, who was outside and saw the shooting, told her to call 911 just as she saw her brother-in-law lying on the ground, shot. She placed an emergency call which urgently requested an ambulance on Mar Caribe Avenue, near the corner of Chetumal. The man was rushed in the ambulance to the nearest emergency room, however he succumbed to his injuries and died by approximately 10:30 pm. The was identified at the hospital as Andrés Rubio Rondero, 48 years old. 

The attacker's white vehicle burning at the garbage dump.

Homicide investigators were called to the crime scene and they found fourteen 5.56 mm spent casings in front of the deceased’s house. Police officers who were called to search the surrounding area found the white compact vehicle burning at a local garbage dump at 10:50 pm, having evidently been disposed of by the attackers. Said Betanzos reports that although this happened on Monday, April 11, it was kept secret from the public until officers disclosed details about the shooting on Tuesday, April 12.

Alleged photo of the deceased Chapitos plaza boss Andrés Rubio Rondero, alias “El Gallo”.

Andrés Rubio Rondero, aliases “El Gallo” and “El Gallito”, was allegedly the Sinaloa Cartel - Chapitos plaza boss for the town of San Felipe, according to Said Betanzos and Radio Patrulla. 

The San Felipe Criminal Landscape

In November 2020, the primary criminal organization operating in San Felipe, called Cartel de Mar, was nearly eliminated, when leaders Segundo Valenzuela and Juan Luis García Ruiz, alias "La Yegua", were arrested by law enforcement. The two men led a group of totoaba traffickers who worked within the coastal town.

Totoaba are a type of fish that are native to the Gulf of California in Mexico and easily caught off the coast of San Felipe. Totoaba are very valuable due to their swim bladder being considered a delicacy in Chinese cuisine and used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat fertility, circulatory and skin issues. Because of this, large commercial fisheries sprang up in the area and they overfished the gulf region until the native totoaba population dramatically shrank in size. 

In 1975, the species was officially placed on the Mexican Endangered Species List and it became illegal to catch totoabas. The Chinese demand for their swim bladders remained, however, so a totoaba trafficking industry developed on the black market. 

In 2013, it was estimated that 200 totoaba swim bladders were worth $3.6 million USD, making each individual bladder worth about $18,000 USD at the time. A 2017 Guardian article reaffirmed this estimate, writing that “the dried swim bladders have an average price of $20,000 per kilogram, causing them to be dubbed ‘aquatic cocaine’.”

Following the arrest of the two leaders of the totoaba traffickers, a power vacuum emerged and according to a June 2021 Zeta Tijuana article, Sinaloa Cartel’s Los Chapitos sought to fill the void. They saw the coastal city as a strategic location to further drug smuggling operations which aimed to bring product from southern Mexico north to cross the US Mexico border.

During this time it was believed that Los Chapitos already had control over the nearby town Gulf of Santa Clara. Zeta wrote that this is “where drug boats arrive, but now they intend to expand their operations to San Felipe to control the entire coast and completely take over a drug route.”

They wrote that a series of recent shootings during the summer of 2021 were indicative of Los Chapitos moving into the area and forcing the local criminal groups to “align” with them. They said the victims of these shootings were a part of the structure of Cartel del Mar that had refused to work with Los Chapitos. 

“Not all fishermen are interested in entering the drug trafficking business or subordinating themselves to external groups, so it is presumed that the attack on these five people was an act of pressure to assassinate obstacles and force others to fall in line.” 

“It is difficult for them to move and unload [drug boats] without the support of people who live in… [San  Felipe], so they sought to align alleged totoaba traffickers to take advantage of their structures and facilitate the unloading and transportation of crystal meth and fentanyl.”

Their efforts during the summer of 2021 seem to have paid off if they were able to install one of their men, El Gallo, as plaza boss. So then comes the question about who killed El Gallo? There is a small chance that someone from the remnants of Cartel del Mar was behind the attack. 

It is more likely that another group, from outside of San Felipe, were the ones who had El Gallo executed. Sinaloa Cartel’s Los Rusos, who stronghold the nearby city of Mexicali as one possibility. Another possibility is Sinaloa Cartel’s Los Salazars, from nearby areas of Sonora, who are still plagued by persistent rumors of having split from the influence of Los Chapitos however there is still no concrete evidence of said split.

Sources: El Imparcial, Radar BC, Radio Patrulla, La Voz de la Frontera, Said Betanzos, RED 59 Noticias SL, June 2021 Zeta Tijuana article