Mexico tightens the noose around Los Chapitos

The noose is tightening around Los Chapitos, the faction of the Sinaloa Cartel led by the sons of its longtime leader, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. In recent days, Mexican authorities have reported the capture in Culiacán of two important collaborators, José Ángel Canobbio, alias “El Güerito,” and Kevin Alonso Gil, alias “El 200,” in operations led by the army. According to the Secretariat of Public Safety and Citizen Protection (SSyPC), both were trusted lieutenants of Iván Archivaldo Guzmán, one of El Chapo’s sons and the current leader of the faction. The arrests of El Güerito and El 200 bring the number of captures of high-profile members of the group since September to at least 51, according to a count made by EL PAÍS, based on official information.

These two arrests follow that of Mario Alberto Núñez, alias “Jando,” on February 7, in the town of Jesús María, half an hour north of the capital of Sinaloa. Jando was also part of Iván Archivaldo Guzmán’s inner circle. In addition to the three arrests, there was also a multi-pronged operation last week against the faction, in Rosario, Mazatlán, and Culiacán, which ended with five arrests and the seizure of weapons and drugs. These blows leave the structure of Los Chapitos in tatters, as they have suffered the loss of almost all their high-ranking men on the ground in the last 15 months.

The arrests give weight to President Claudia Sheinbaum in her narrative battle against her counterpart in Washington, Donald Trump, who has placed the fight against migration and fentanyl trafficking on his list of priorities. On Thursday, the designation of six Mexican criminal groups as terrorist organizations came into effect in the United States, including the Sinaloa Cartel, the main supplier of fentanyl north of the Rio Grande, according to the U.S. administration. Sheinbaum has responded with a constitutional amendment, which will toughen the penalties against foreign agents who operate without permission on Mexican soil.

The arrests of the last week and a half should also have an impact on the war between Los Chapitos and the other main faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, led by Ismael Zambada Sicairos, alias “Mayito Flaco,” son of the other historical capo of the criminal organization, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. Both El Chapo and El Mayo are in prison in the U.S., the former serving a life sentence and the latter awaiting trial. It was precisely the capture of El Mayo last July that unleashed the war between factions, when another of El Chapo’s sons allegedly set a trap for Zambada in Culiacán, to kidnap him and take him across the border into the hands of the U.S. authorities.

That alleged betrayal set the battle in motion. The Zambada faction called for revenge and began the latest round of hostilities, a situation that in Sinaloa was reminiscent of the fight last decade between Los Chapitos and Dámaso López, an old ally of their father, or the war between El Chapo and the Beltrán Leyva brothers that broke out in 2008. Since the beginning of the cartel war in September, the dead and missing number in the hundreds in Sinaloa, particularly in Culiacán, a Los Chapitos stronghold in recent years.

Of the new arrests, Canobbio’s is especially sensitive. Authorities have noted that El Güerito was Iván Archivaldo Guzmán’s main financial operator and was in charge of “security operations, planning drug trafficking routes and distribution networks for fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamines internationally, as well as operations with illicit proceeds.” Canobbio, who “had his own criminal cell,” allegedly also participated in the Culiacanazos of 2019 and 2023, the guerrilla operations launched by the Los Chapitos hitman network to prevent the arrest of Ovidio Guzmán López, another of El Chapo’s sons.

In November of last year, the U.S. Department of Justice released an indictment against Canobbio for trafficking cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl and marijuana to the U.S., alongside Los Chapitos. The indictment alleges that El Güerito was one of Iván Archivaldo Guzmán’s top advisers, as well as his head of security. It is likely that he will follow the same path as another of Los Chapitos’ strongmen, Néstor Isidro Pérez, alias “El Nini,” who was operationally responsible for the Culiacanazos and the leader of a large group of hitmen, who answered to the faction. El Nini was arrested in November 2023 and later extradited to the U.S.

What happens in the next few days in Culiacán and its environs will give an idea of the future of the war, and that of the Sinaloa Cartel. Los Chapitos are supported by Iván Archivaldo and his brother, Jesús Alfredo, the only two of El Chapo’s sons who remain at large. Of their lieutenants on the ground, only two remain: Jorge Humberto Figueroa, alias “El Perris,” whose structure has suffered several arrests since October, and Óscar Noe Medina, alias “Panu.” The others have either been arrested, such as Nini, “El Piyis” or “El Pelón de Sonoyta,” or killed, as is the case of “El Chore.”

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