MEXICO CITY (AP) — Cellphone chats have become death sentences in the ongoing, bloody factional war within Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel.
Cartel gunmen stop young people on the street or in their cars and demand their phones. If they find a contact who is a member of a rival faction, a chat with the wrong word or a photo with the wrong person, the phone owner is dead.
They then go after everyone on that person's contact list, creating a potential chain of kidnapping, torture, and death. That has left residents of Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, afraid to even leave their homes at night, let alone visit towns a few kilometers away where many have weekend retreats.
“You can't go out of town for five minutes, even in daylight,” said Ismael Bojórquez, a veteran journalist in Culiacan. “Why? Because the narcos have set up roadblocks and are stopping you and searching your cell phone.”
And it's not just your own chats: if someone is traveling in a car with others, one bad contact or chat can get the entire group kidnapped.
That's what happened to the son of a local news photographer. The 20-year-old was arrested along with two other young people and something was found on one of their phones; all three disappeared. A call was made and the photographer's son was eventually released, but the other two were never seen again.
The residents of Culiacan had long been accustomed to the occasional day or two of violence. The Sinaloa Cartel's presence is woven into daily life there, and people knew to stay indoors when they saw the convoys of crew-cab pickups racing through the streets.
But they have never experienced the fierce fighting that erupted on September 9 between factions of the Sinaloa cartel after drug lords Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López were captured in the United States after flying there in a small plane in July flown. 25.
Zambada later claimed that he had been kidnapped and forced onto the plane by Guzmán López, sparking a violent battle between Zambada's faction and the 'Chapitos' group led by the sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzmán .
Culiacan residents mourn their old lives, when the wheels of the local economy were greased by cartel wealth, but citizens rarely suffered as a result — unless they crossed the wrong pickup in traffic.
Juan Carlos Ayala, an academic who studies the anthropology of drug trafficking at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, said that after the arrests of Guzmán López and Zambada in July, a new generation of younger, more high-profile and cosmopolitan drug barons have taken power.
They fight with extreme violence, kidnappings and cell phone tracking – not the old kind of handshake deals that their elders used to settle cases in addition to gunfights.
“There is a new generation of drug and organized crime leaders here, using different strategies,” Ayala said. “They see that the gunfight tactics haven't worked for them, so they turn to kidnapping.”
“They catch one person and he has messages from the rival group,” Ayala said. “So they go after him to gather more information, and that sets off a chain of hunts to capture the enemy.”
The new tactic is reflected in the massive wave of armed carjackings in and around Culiacan. Cartel gunmen often stole the SUVs and pickups they favored in cartel convoys; but now they are focusing on stealing smaller sedans.
They use these to remain undetected during their silent, deadly kidnappings.
Often the first thing a driver knows is when a passing car throws out a stream of bent nails to puncture its tires. Vehicles stop in front and behind to cut him off. The driver is bundled into another car. All the neighbors can find is a car with broken tires, the doors open and the engine running, in the middle of the street.
The State Council for Public Security, a civil society group, estimates that an average of six murders and seven disappearances or kidnappings per day have occurred in and around the city over the past month. The group said about 200 families have fled their homes in remote communities due to the violence.
Culiacan is no stranger to violence: shootings broke out in the city in October 2019 when soldiers made a failed attempt to arrest another of Chapo Guzmán's sons, Ovidio. Fourteen people were killed that day.
A few days later, citizen activist Estefanía López organized a peace march that attracted 4,000 residents. When she tried to do something similar this year, she was only able to get about 1,500 people to attend a similar demonstration.
“We received a lot of messages in advance from a lot of people saying they wanted to participate and march to support the cause, but they were afraid to come,” López said.
There is reason to be afraid: last week, gunmen stormed a hospital in Culiacan to kill a patient who had previously been injured by gunfire. In a town north of Culiacan, drivers were surprised to see a military helicopter just meters from a highway trying to round up four armed men wearing helmets and tactical vests; the gunmen fired back at the helicopter.
The government's response to all this has been to blame the United States for fomenting trouble by allowing the drug lords to turn themselves in and send in hundreds of army troops.
But irregular urban fighting in the heart of a city of 1 million — against a cartel with plenty of .50-caliber sniper rifles and machine guns — is not the military's specialty.
Groups of soldiers entered a luxury apartment complex in the center of the city to detain a suspect and ended up shooting dead a young lawyer who was just a bystander.
López, the peace activist, has called for soldiers and police to be stationed outside schools so that children can return to classes. Most are currently taking online classes because their parents consider it too dangerous to take them to school.
But the police cannot solve the problem: the entire municipal force of Culiacan has been temporarily disarmed by soldiers to check their weapons, something that has been done in the past when the military suspects police officers are working for drug cartels.
The local army commander recently acknowledged that it is up to the cartel factions – and not the authorities – when the violence will stop.
“In Culiacan there is no longer even the confidence that we will be safe, with the police or with the soldiers,” López said, noting that this has had a clear effect on daily life and the economy. “Many businesses, restaurants and nightclubs have closed over the past month.”
Laura Guzmán, the leader of the local restaurant chamber, said that since September 9, about 180 businesses in Culiacan have closed permanently or temporarily and nearly 2,000 jobs have been lost.
Local businesses tried to organize evening “tardeadas” (long afternoons) for residents who did not want to go out after dark, but they did not attract enough customers.
“Young people are not interested in going out right now,” Guzmán said.
For those looking to temporarily escape the violence, the resort town of Mazatlan used to be just 2.5 hours away by car. But that has not been an option since last month, when cartel gunmen hijacked passenger buses, forced the tourists out and set the vehicles on fire to block the road to Mazatlan.
That leaves only one option, and it's only open to some.
“Those who have the economic resources leave the city by plane to take a break,” Guzmán said.
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