Attempted Hit on CAF's El Toro by CDS Hitmen in Tijuana

"HEARST" and "Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

One month ago, a U-Haul truck full of at least ten Sinaloa Cartel hitmen barreled into Toscana, a gated residential subdivision in the city of Tijuana.

Toscana subdivision was thought to be one of the safest places in the city, so safe in fact that it was where US diplomats chose to live with their young families.

The hitmen sped into the subdivision in the dead of night, on a mission to kill a cartel figure who was hiding out inside - but before they could reach him, the cartel figure's bodyguards spotted them and a gun fight broke out. 

The families of US consulate workers huddled inside their homes, as the hitmen battled outside their doors, just one or two houses away. 

The US Consulate in Tijuana put out an emergency alert warning all government employees to shelter in place.

Eventually, the shootout ended, with no civilians seemingly harmed. 

Mexican news agencies released the name of the intended target of the hit, writing that the cartel figure was attacked by the hitmen for killing a 7-year old boy. 

This will be the story of that cartel figure  - a man named Jaime Daniel Gutiérrez García, who goes by the criminal alias ”El Toro”.

But this will also be a story about how cartel propaganda works and how the Mexican media ecosystem often acts as a bullhorn to said propaganda -  amplifying its reach while adding undeserved legitimacy to its claims.

This whole incident, the moving truck full of hitmen, the bullets whizzing past US consulate employees and their families at 4am, happened a month ago. 

This should have been the biggest news story of the week, and yet this story never really gained traction in the media. 

Why? Well, because almost no details about it were ever released by the Mexican government. The cartel groups seemingly exerted an utter chokehold on information - no different than what they are doing today in Sinaloa with Guano and Numeradas. 

Some of the only concrete information ever released about the hit was the name of the target, Jaime Daniel Gutiérrez García, “El Toro”. So, that’s where we’ll start, by piecing together who this El Toro guy is.

Overview of El Toro’s Criminal History

In approximately 1986, a man named Jaime Daniel Gutiérrez García was born in the city of Culiacan, Sinaloa. At some point in time, he moved to Baja California and started operating within the cartel world, where he became known by the aliases “El Toro” and “El Cachis”.

When El Toro first caught the attention of law enforcement, he was working under the Cartel Arellano Felix (CAF) figure Ricardo Bozada Alvarado, alias “El Bozadas”, who, in turn, worked under Pablo Edwin Huerta Nuño, alias “El Flaquito”.

For a brief period in time there was a non-aggression pact between Flaquito’s group (which was a CAF & Sinaloa Cartel - Chapitos hybrid) and a cartel group led by Alfonso Arzate Garcia, alias “El Aquiles”, from the Sinaloa Cartel (CDS) - Mayo faction. 

But in September 2019,  the non-aggression pact dissolved and the two groups went to war over control over the port of Ensenada.

The port of Ensenada functioned as a key part of drug trafficking routes to Asia and it facilitated the movement of drugs produced in South America (like cocaine) to various selling locations in Asia.

According to La Silla Rota, the struggle primarily centered around the Ensenada port employees, who were reportedly being pressured to stop accepting the CDS - Mayo bribes they were already taking and to, instead, start accepting CAF-Chapitos bribes, enabling the group to expand their drug trafficking routes to Asia while officials “looked the other way”.

The war over the port went on for years but all that really matters for the purpose of our story is that in March 2020, El Toro’s boss El Bozadas was arrested by agents from SEIDO, the DEA and Interpol at the Mexico City International Airport. 

(To read a more in depth coverage of this war over the port, please see this previous story.)

El Toro continued to work in Ensenada, acquiring businesses, and building up legal revenue sources.

Recent Cartel Activity Related to El Toro 

Over the last few months, there has been a flurry of cartel activity related to El Toro, in both Baja California and Sinaloa. Unpacking these incidents is essential to understanding the attempted hit on El Toro. 

January 7, 2024 

A Botched Hit Leads to the Death of a Child

A family was driving a Jeep Rubicón in the Valle Alto neighborhood of Culiacan, Sinaloa, when hitmen in four vehicles opened fire on the Jeep. The father and mother in the Jeep were left uninjured but their son, Cruz Ricardo, was hit and he died shortly after at a hospital. Cruz was either 7 or 8 years old at the time of his death (reports vary on his age). 

Toro’s cartel rivals later claimed that it was Toro who was behind this hit. 

It's important to make clear something which every Mexican media outlet has not acknowledged: somebody else in the Jeep was the real target of the hit (likely the father) and that person is involved, in some way, with a cartel group. 

Cartel members are not organizing 4-vehicle hitmen squads in order to kill random little boys. It is tragic that an innocent child was killed but it is also inherently dishonest to represent this attack as if it was a shooting which affected a random Culiacan family. 

The real target of the attack could be a cartel member or possibly a government employee, or even a businessman involved with a cartel group. But the identity of the adults in the vehicle has not been released officially nor reported unofficially by the press. 

Any implication of motive or this being a hit was not reported by the press. 

If you were to read the coverage of this shooting from the major publications like El Universal, Riodoce, Quadratin, and Milenio, you might come away thinking that this was just a senseless act of violence which targeted a family at random.

January 25, 2024

Series of Attacks on Properties Associated with El Toro & An Attempted Hit on a Cartel Lawyer 

Then, a series of vengeance attacks against Toro began. At 3:30 am, hitmen threw molotov cocktails at two liquor stores (Licores Cardón 1 in the Bustamante neighborhood and El Cardón de la Baja in the Hidalgo neighborhood) in Ensenada. Both of these stores were owned by “a man close to” El Toro, according to Zeta Tijuana. 

At 4:20 am , the same hitmen threw molotov cocktails and fired shots at a luxury ranch owned by El Toro. This ranch is located in San Miguel, near El Sauzal, in an area just north of Ensenada.

Then, hitmen secretly surveilled the outside of a seafood restaurant in Ensenada called Villa Marina, waiting for 3-4 hours as a group of lawyers had a dinner meeting inside. When the group of lawyers emerged at approximately 6:30 pm, the hitmen opened fire on them. 

The hitmen intended to kill a lawyer named Miguel Ángel Cortés Muro, however Cortés Muro ended up surviving the attack despite getting hit in the wrist, stomach and lower abdomen.  A lawyer named Gabriel Agustín Fuentes Huesca, however, was killed. And another lawyer named Cristian Alejandro Espinoza Lucero was also shot, but he also survived. 

So why did the hitmen want to kill that lawyer Cortés Muro? 

Cortés Muro has represented a number of cartel figures. He used to represent the cartel figure Víctor Manuel Padilla Murillo, alias “El Chatarras”, who was involved in drug trafficking out of the port of Ensenada. Chatarras was involved in the same struggle for control of the port that involved El Toro and El Bozadas. 

It's important to note that El Chatarras was famously arrested by Mexican federal agents and later killed while in witness protection, allegedly by one of the federal agents working as his bodyguard. Many believe the agent was bribed into killing him by either El Flaquito or La Rana. More information on all of this in this previous story. 

The only motive for the hit on Chatarras’s lawyer mentioned by Zeta Tijuana is an ongoing property dispute between the lawyer and Chatarras’s son. 

It’s also worth noting that the lawyer representing El Chatarras significant other was shot to death in February 2022. 

This whole attack on Chatarras’s lawyer may seem unrelated to El Toro, but it actually plays a key role in the unfolding events but. Zeta Tijuana reports that the exact same firearm used to kill Chatarras’s lawyer was used to shoot up Toro’s ranch according to ballistic tests done by state authorities. 

This could mean the cartel group going after El Toro is the same group which wanted to kill Chattaras’s lawyer, which may give us some indication of who is going after Toro.

January 29 

Sayed Villa Arce Killed in His Vehicle by CAF Hitmen

A man was shot dead inside his vehicle in Colonia Jalisco in Ensenada by cartel hitmen. The deceased was later identified as a man named Sayed Villa Arce. He was said to be 27 years old at the time of his death. 

The vehicle used by the hitmen was identified by a witness and the same vehicle was found abandoned in the Morelos neighborhood. When the plates were run, police found that it was reported as stolen on January 25, 2024. 

Zeta says the attack was perpetrated by a CAF cell active in Ensenada but it's unclear why Sayed was targeted and which CAF figures he may have been involved with. Zeta also framed their coverage of this attack and some of the others as it being a battle between two CAF cells, which only complicates things.

February 8-9 2024

El Toro’s Cousin is Kidnapped, Beaten, Filmed, & Killed

El Toro’s cousin, a man named Jesús Héctor Gutiérrez Salazar, was kidnapped while he was running errands in Culiacán, Sinaloa, after he left work. 

His cousin worked at Sinaloa’s Federal Environmental Protection Agency (PROFEPA).

A group of hitmen kidnapped Toro’s cousin and the cousin’s abandoned vehicle was later found in the Guadalupe neighborhood of Culiacan. 

The hitmen beat up Toro’s cousin and filmed him confessing that Toro was the cartel figure behind the attack on the Jeep which killed the boy. The cousin has a number of bruises visible on his arms in the footage.

Footage of the cousin’s confession was published and posted on social media by Aquiles-associated sources like Gente de Tia Juana. 

In the video, he said the following, as translated by Sol Prendido:

“My name is Jesús Héctor Gutiérrez Salazar. I’m known as El Jechu. I am a cousin of Jaime Daniel Gutierrez Garcia aka El Toro, the main partner of Lico Beltrán. My cousin Toro killed a 7 year old child. He was the son of Ricardo Beltran.”

We’ll return to the content of this statement later on. 

The hitmen killed Toro’s cousin after filming the confession video. They rolled up his dead body in a gray quilt, wrapped it with tape and dumped it on a dirt road in Campesina El Barrio, in Culiacan, Sinaloa.

A strange children’s toy, a black and white robot dog, was placed on top of the dead body. The toy is manufactured in China and marketed in some countries as a “Zoomer Zuppy”. The symbolism of this toy being placed on top of the body is frustratingly unclear. 

The governor later mentioned that the toy may be a message about Toro’s cousin being involved with “illegal animals”.

February 10, 2024

El Pitufo and His Two Sons Are Killed

Back in Ensenada, another alleged CAF figure was hit. Jorge Armando Meléndez Cervera, alias “El Pitufo”, was driving with his family on Mauricio Campo Street in Ensenada when his vehicle was shot up by hitmen. The attack left Pitufo, his 22-year old son, and his 14-year old son dead. 

The only survivor from the vehicle was Pitufo’s wife, who was also the mother to Pitufo’s two sons. El Vigia reports that she had a nervous breakdown, likely due to having just seen her family murdered in front of her. 

So who did Pitufo work for? Previous reporting suggests that Pitufo worked under Jorge Humberto Acosta Gallegos, alias “El Güero Leches”, who started out working under CAF but later began working under CDS - El Aquiles. Zeta Tijuana is currently referring to Pitufo as a CAF member but it's unclear if Zeta is claiming he switched back to CAF again or if they are misreporting his cartel affiliation. 

The murder of Pitufo’s 14-year old son garnered much less mainstream media attention than the 7-year old boy in Sinaloa. 

The Alleged Target of the Sinaloa Hit

Let’s go back to the names that Toro’s cousin mentioned in the video confession. 

“My name is Jesús Héctor Gutiérrez Salazar. I’m known as El Jechu. I am a cousin of Jaime Daniel Gutierrez Garcia aka El Toro, the main partner of Lico Beltrán. My cousin Toro killed a 7 year old child. He was the son of Ricardo Beltran.”

So according to this, the child killed in the botched hit was the son of Ricardo Beltran, but who is that? It’s currently unclear. It could refer to a Sinaloa Cartel figure who famously procured a McLaren F1 sports car for El Chapo but that seems unlikely and unrelated.  

What would lead an Ensenada-based drug trafficker like Toro to travel back home to Sinaloa to carry out a hit? Or did he convey orders through his cousin in Sinaloa? 

What about Ricardo Beltran made him important enough to warrant the travel and what did they do which made Toro think they warranted the time and effort? 

And how did Toro or his cousin gather up enough cartel hitmen to fill the four vehicles which were used in the Sinaloa hit? Did Toro bring some of his own men from his primary operating region of Baja California to Sinaloa, or did he have a second group operating in Sinaloa?

These are all questions which seem vital to understanding the attack which killed the 7-year old, but rather than investigate this, Mexican press articles seem content to frame this story as simply a young boy killed while he was with his family.

El Toro’s Alleged Associates in the Cartel World

In the video, Toro's cousin also mentioned that Toro’s cartel business partner is Lico Beltrán. The video displays a photo of a man alleged to be “Lico Beltrán”. 

César Quintero Beltrán, alias “El Lico Beltrán”, is a cartel figure who has been associated with the CAF and El Flaquito since at least 2016. 

El Lico is said to be a nephew of the old school CAF figure Cresencio Beltrán Murillo, alias “El Chencho”, who co-founded the CAF off-shoot group “Los Pilotos”. Chencho was a good friend of CJNG leader El Mencho and he helped to shepherd in the brief CAF-CJNG alliance. 

Lico was sad to be working under his uncle Chencho in numerous PSN articles, which described Pilotos as a group involved in “large-scale marijuana trafficking and the executions and violence which plague the city.”

El Lico is also the cousin of Chencho’s other nephews: Uriel Beltrán Murillo, alias "El Java", and Salvador Beltrán Murillo. 

Uriel and Salvador were both CAF members who were entangled in the kidnapping of Mayo’s niece María Isabel Gutiérrez Zambada - the kidnapping was itself a revenge attack for the murder of a CAF member’s sister that was allegedly ordered by Mayo.

Lico has also been mentioned in previous narco banners placed in Tijuana, like the one shown below, which threatened Hiram Sanchez Zamora, the state’s Attorney General at the time, for “supporting Lico from CAF, nephew of the commander Beltran”. 

Toro is also said to work closely with a man named Javier Quintana Castillo, aliases "El Rayo" and "El Misa". 

Very little is known about Rayo, but some social media accounts claim he may have connections which enable him to smuggle cocaine from Ecuador.

Here’s where things get a little frustrating. All the information we’ve gone over so far would lead one to believe that Toro, Lico Beltran, and Rayo are in some way associated with the CAF. But for some strange reason, every news publication referred to them as simply “drug traffickers” and gave no specific cartel affiliation. 

The Attack in Tijuana

And now we've reached the attack on the safest neighborhood in Tijuana. The big attempt to kill El Toro by a cartel group. 

On February 26, 2024, a group of approximately 10-16 hitmen from the Sinaloa Cartel gathered, preparing to attack a house which was rented by El Toro.

The house was located near the Cumbres de Juarez neighborhood in Tijuana, nestled inside the residential subdivision called Villa Toscana. 

Villa Toscana is a gated community with a manned security booth at the front entrance. The only other entrance into the neighborhood is a large metal gate located on the eastern side, which is likely kept locked. 

AFN Tijuana reported that Villa Toscana was considered to be “the safest area of the exclusive subdivision [Cumbres de Juarez],” and that “members of the Fimbres families live in that area; relatives of former Security Secretary Jesús Alberto Capella Ibarra; the former State official, Mario Escobedo, boxing promoter Fernando Beltrán and families Santana, Rubio and others."

AFN later reported that the house that Toro rented was directly across the street from the houses of two US Consulate employees and their families 

According to Zeta Tijuana, El Toro is said to have rented the house in Villa Toscana for the last three years.

Interesting to note that although Toro was the one named as the renter, according to AFN, it was actually Toro’s cartel associate El Rayo who actually lived in the property, along with Rayo’s family.

Rayo also reportedly used the house, in some ways, as a safehouse, with AFN reporting that Rayo would regularly package drugs inside the property. The fact that two US consulate employees lived so close by was seemingly of no concern to Rayo.

Whether Toro was inside the property when the hitmen arrived and their attack began, or if it was merely Rayo and his family inside is unclear, although some social media accounts claim Toro was inside in an allegation we’ll cover soon.

NMAS reported that the attack began at approximately 4:00 am, while most of the residents in the neighborhood were presumably asleep. 

The bodyguards of somebody who lived in the neighborhood noticed the hitmen shortly after they entered the neighborhood and a gun fight broke out.

AFN Tijuana actually went out of their way to mention that several residents in Villa Toscana are believed to have bodyguards protecting them, which may imply that it may not have been Toro’s or Rayo’s bodyguards who got involved. 

But Zeta Tijuana also mentioned that Toro “regularly traveled with 4 to 5 bodyguards.”

AFN claims the US Consulate sent out the warning to shelter in place due to the proximity of the shooting to the homes of the consulate employees, implying there may have been an initial concern that the employees were being targeted. 

Not much is known about what took place during the gun battle but whatever happened led to blood stains in the driveway of the home rented by Toro. 

After about 20 minutes of gunfire, the hitmen eventually relented and seemed to have left the neighborhood.

Two social media accounts, Gente de Tia Juana and Soy Neutral Tijuana posted alleged security footage showing a man who they claim is Toro walking out after the shooting ended and getting into a white Cadillac.

Video Source: Gente de Tia Juana & Soy Neutral Tijuana

If their claims were true, it would seemingly confirm that Toro was inside the house, in addition to Rayo and Rayo’s family. But here’s where things get interesting. 

UniradioInforma published their own photo of the white Cadillac, but they wrote that the target of the attack “managed to escape, taking his wife and two children with him to an unknown destination, according to reports.” This is clearly alluding to Rayo being the guy who got in the Cadillac, not Toro. 

AFN Tijuana claims outright that the man in the Cadillac was El Rayo. They also added that the Cadillac was armored and it broke down the front gate of the residential subdivision as they sped out of the area. (Why they believe it was the Cadillac and not the U-Haul truck which broke down the gate is unstated.)

The vehicle drove to, strangely enough, “a parking lot of a private school in Colonia Dávila,” according to NMAS. The private school was presumably not open because Rayo drove out of the subdivision before dawn, so the choice to drive to that location is curious. 

Photos of the vehicle which was found outside the private school are shown above.

U-Haul Crash & Arrests

The Sinaloa Cartel hitmen who had just attacked Villa Toscana crashed their U-Haul on Cuauhtemoc Sur Boulevard, soon after driving out of the subdivision.

The exact cause of the crash is unknown but some articles report that municipal police officers spotted and chased the truck after hearing a description of the attacker’s vehicles from witnesses in Villa Toscana.

The U-Haul ended up crashing into a tree near Hotel Sevilla and six hitmen were arrested from the vehicle, with a few others managing to flee on foot. 

One of the hitmen running was allegedly caught just one street over, on Francia Street. 

The hitmen were made to sit on the curb, as seen in the photo below, and their information was taken by police officers. Their names and ages are: Angel “N”, 32 years old; Fernando “N”, 34; Uriel “N”, 26; Dionisio “N”, 36; Jesús “N” and Jorge Luis “N”, both 34 years old, and Julián “N”, 16 years old (who was hospitalized). 

Officers seized from them the following: three 9mm caliber firearms, one .40 caliber firearm and four .223 caliber firearms, three ballistic vests and ammo.

The "Motive" & The News Parroting Cartel Propaganda

So, Toro and/or Rayo survived the attempted hit and some of the hitmen were arrested.

Mexican government officials were incredibly tight-lipped about the shooting, refusing to name the intended target of the hit or the possible motive for the attack. 

Because the government wasn’t giving up any real information, news outlets were forced to look elsewhere, seeking out the only sources which were discussing the incident. 

This led them to social media accounts like Gente de la Tia Juana, who have long been accused of having strong Sinaloa Cartel - Aquiles sympathies. These accounts claimed that Toro was targeted by the hitmen because he had killed a 7-year old boy in Culiacan a month earlier.

It also led news agencies to the video of Toro’s cousin reading a Sinaloa-Cartel-written statement which blamed Toro for the boy’s death. 

Multiple news publications went on to repeat the social media account’s claims that Toro was attacked by the hitmen in an act of retribution - as vengeance for the 7 year old boy killed in Culiacan.

Publications like Zeta Tijuana, Riodoce, and AFN Tijuana all published the claim that El Toro was allegedly targeted by the Tijuana hitmen because they believe he played a part in killing the boy in Culiacan. 

Now, this motive is, of course, blatant cartel propaganda. It paints Toro as the villain and recasts the Sinaloa Cartel hitmen as honorable avengers when the reality is both sides are just as equally-abhorrent and the hit on Toro was standard fare in a battle between warring factions. 

News agencies choosing to repeat this claim is especially dangerous because it adds an air of legitimacy to a long debunked myth that some cartel groups have rules against hurting children.

Let’s be clear about something: All Mexican cartel groups knowingly, and often systematically, hurt children. 

The most common way cartel groups hurt children is through forced recruitment, in which members target vulnerable children, most especially teenage boys living in poverty, into “joining” the cartel group, only to use them as a cheap cannon fodder in some ongoing territory war. 

Cartel groups hurt children in far more direct ways, as evidenced by the toddler sized clothing regularly found in the mass graves of cartel victims.

Sinaloa Cartel’s Chapitos allegedly had their hitmen shoot at the cartel figure El Tolin while he was taking his two young sons out to get haircuts in Rosarito. The attack left Tolin’s young son with a gunshot wound and the child had to be rushed to the hospital. 

So, no, despite what multiple news outlets reported, there are no cartel groups sending out a 10-person hitman squad to take down other cartel members for violating some sort of moral code.

The hitman squad was formed because Toro is likely a CAF member associated with El Flaquito and he was targeted by Sinaloa Cartel hitmen, likely from El Aquiles, because they are two warring cartel groups. 

It seems like Toro may have orchestrated a hit on a Sinaloa Cartel figure in Culiacan which ended up mistakenly killing a 7-year old boy. 

Just one month later, the 14 year old son of a CAF member known as Pitufo was killed by Sinaloa Cartel hitmen in Baja California. 

Why was the death of one boy elevated and held up as some moral cause to rally behind? 

Because the threat of violence against journalists prevents all investigative reporting. And because the Mexican government refused to give out real information about the hit on El Toro, which forced news agencies to turn to sources which were either produced or loosely associated with a cartel group. 

And then we end up here, with tiny scraps of information, unable to piece this incident into the larger war - a frustrating lack of information leading to nothing but dead ends. 

Shooting in Culiacan Sources: Los Noticieristas, Viva Voz, Linea Directa, Borderland Beat, El Sol de Sinaloa, Clic Noticias, El Sol de Sinaloa, Vanguardia Veracruz

Recent Attacks Sources: Ensenada.net, El Imparcial, Zeta Tijuana, El Vigia, Zeta Tijuana, Zeta Tijuana, Gabriel Xala, Reporteros Com, Peninsula BC, Ensenada.net Article 1, Article 2

Villa Toscana Attack Sources: US Embassy Alert , El Imparcial, El Financiero, Periodismo Negro, NMAS, Excelsior, Sintesis TV, AFN Tijuana, UniradioInforma

Detainees Sources: AFN Tijuana, Benjamin Pena, RiodoceEl Democrata, Periodismo Negro, XEWT 12, Zeta Tijuana, Tribuna, Baja News

Toro Sources: PSN En Linea

Video Sources: Gente de Tia Juana Surveillance Video, Soy Neutral Tijuana, Gente de Tia Juana Interrogation 

Toro’s Cousin Sources: Reflectores, Luz Noticias, AFN TIjuana, Zoomer Zuppies, Los Noticieristas, Radio Formula, Link Sinaloa Article 1, Article 2