19 Cars Stolen Every Day During Battle Between Mayos And Chapos

 "Char" for Borderland Beat 

This article was translated and reposted from RIODOCE 

Author: Roxana Vivanco

Date | November 4, 2024

Time | 5:00 pm

The internal conflict within the Sinaloa Cartel has increased crime in the state, mainly in the central zone, where security operations have not been able to reduce the incidence of crime.

“Look my people, this is the reality that we are living in Culiacán, they just took our van, they took our van, and they were very sensitive, they let us take some things down... The lady over there (a woman dressed in black is seen next to a military vehicle) just had her van taken away. She was moving her belongings and they took everything from her... The man (showing a man in a blue T-shirt sitting on a bench) had his vehicle taken away too, and they didn't let him take anything down either. The situation is terrible,” says a woman in a video recorded on October 30 on the Culiacán-Mazatlán highway.

The incident occurred in the vicinity of Elota. The day before, on the same road, but near Costa Rica, an armed group robbed the Undersecretary of Human Rights, Patricia Figueroa, and the Commissioner for the Search for Disappeared Persons, Karina Marquez, of a pickup truck. And on October 7, in the same area, in two almost simultaneous events, a commando stole the vehicles in which the then elected mayor of Mazatlan, Estrella Palacios, and the mayor of San Ignacio, Octavio Bastidas, were traveling.

In Sinaloa, car theft has skyrocketed since the beginning of the internal struggle of the Sinaloa Cartel, and neither the arrival of military elements nor the reinforcement of security operations and the implementation of surveillance points have managed to contain the crime. Plataforma México reports that since September 9, when the internal struggle of the Sinaloa Cartel began, and up to November 1, 1,053 vehicles have been stolen in the state, mostly in the central zone.

The thefts, with the use of violence, have been perpetrated by commandos or armed individuals, and have occurred since the beginning of the conflict. And far from decreasing, they have been increasing. From September 9 to 30, 370 units were stolen, in October 661 and on November 1, 22 more.

In other words, in 54 days of conflict between Chapos and Mayos, an average of 19 vehicles have been stolen every day in the state.

From January to August, 1,825 cars were stolen in the state, an average of seven every day.

NARCOBLOCKINGS. With cars taken.

The October figure is also the highest since January 2023, when 871 were reported. On the 5th of that month, Ovidio Guzmán was arrested in the Jesús María syndicate, in what is known as the second Culiacanazo. On that occasion, armed groups also carried out vehicle thefts that were burned or used in the so-called narco-blockades.

The highest historical figure reported by the State Attorney General's Office is from August 2011, when 950 vehicles were stolen.

According to FGE statistics, more than 350 of the total number of vehicles stolen last October occurred in the central part of the state, where since September 9 the Chapos and Mayos have been engaged in an internal struggle, mainly in Culiacán, Eldorado and Navolato, as well as in southern municipalities such as Elota and San Ignacio.

Some of the stolen vehicles, which also include buses and trailers, have been burned and/or used in road blockades, mainly on the Culiacán-Mazatlán highway, the highway to Eldorado, highway Mexico 15 or within the urban area of the capital city, and others have been used in criminal acts.

The Mexican Association of Insurance Institutions (AMIS) reports that in Sinaloa 78 percent of vehicle thefts involve the use of violence. In Culiacán, videos shared on social networks show armed men threatening victims to get them to hand over their cars. In most cases they succeed and in other cases they have failed, as happened on October 12 in the Santa Fe sector, when three subjects were killed when they tried to rob an agent of the Protective Services Directorate of the State Public Security Secretariat, who was armed.

On October 24, two UAS students, one a medical student and the other an architecture student, were killed during the alleged attempted robbery of the vehicle in which they were traveling on Heroico Colegio Militar road in the Emiliano Zapata neighborhood. Another person waiting for the truck died at the scene and another was injured.

In contrast to the increase in vehicle theft, the Elite Group of the State Preventive Police and the Specialized Unit for Vehicle Theft Investigation of the State Attorney General's Office have managed to recover between 20 and 30 stolen vehicles during the struggle, most of which were found abandoned, such as the Chevrolet Tahoe pickup truck in which Estrella Palacios was traveling, and which was recovered the same day a few meters from the Costa Rica highway.

Although the characteristics of the stolen units have not been specified, among those recovered are Nissan Frontier, GMC Sierra, Ford X-Terra, Nissan Pathfinder, Toyota Raize, as well as Volkswagen Vento, Toyota Corolla, Nissan March, Hyundai, Kia, Chevrolet Aveo, Mazda 3.

During the wave of violence, 35 motorcycles were also stolen in Culiacán from an agency located in the Buenos Aires neighborhood in the early hours of September 11. There, those affected reported the incident as it was happening, but the authorities did not respond.

Article published on October 03, 2024 in edition 1136 of the weekly Ríodoce.

SOURCE: RIODOCE