Mayito Flaco Hands Over Northern Sinaloa to Chapo Isidro

In the Mexico of shadowy pacts—where the national map is not drawn in geography institutes, but rather at the war tables of criminal organizations—what we are witnessing in Sinaloa is the total rewriting of a state.

Today is Wednesday, March 11, 2026, and the news shaking the foundations of the Northeast is neither a security operation nor a public policy aimed at pacification. It is a strategic survival maneuver that redefines who commands, who obeys, and who survives in the land of the Zambada family.

Pay close attention, for what is unfolding is a tectonic shift within the world of organized crime. Ismael Zambada Sicairos—better known as “El Mayito Flaco” or “MF”—has made a decision that marks a definitive turning point in the Sinaloa Cartel’s internal civil war.

The formal handover of control over the northern part of the state to Fausto Isidro Mesa Flores—”El Chapo Isidro”—and his armed wing, the Avendaño Special Forces (the “FEA”), is not a gesture of peace; make no mistake. It is a scorched-earth maneuver designed to avert the total collapse of the “Mayiza” faction in the face of the mounting costs of this war against “Los Chapitos.”

To understand how we arrived at this carving up of a blood-soaked pie, we must return to the source of the fracture. Let us recall that everything changed on July 25, 2024—the day the arrest of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada on U.S. soil was officially confirmed. That event—which his defense team and followers denounced as a kidnapping and an act of betrayal by Joaquín Guzmán López—shattered a balance of power that had endured for decades.

What followed was the eruption of a war waged with both narratives and bullets—a conflict that, as of the first quarter of 2026, has left behind a humanitarian crisis characterized by casualty figures that the federal government attempts to downplay, but which reality starkly refutes.

More than 2,400 lives have been claimed, adding to a list of missing persons that continues to grow without end. In Sinaloa, violence is no longer merely a series of targeted attacks; it is a war for territorial control waged with quasi-military tactics.

The deployment of the so-called “monstruos” vehicles featuring improvised armor plating, which we have seen burning in areas like the Elota confirms that the conflict has escalated into a phase of absolute, brutal attrition. In this context, *El Mayito Flaco* realized a brutal truth: fighting on two fronts was suicide.

He faced pressure from the sons of Guzmán Loera pushing in from central and southern Culiacán, alongside rumors of friction with *El Chapo Isidro* in the north—specifically in Guasave and Los Mochis—which threatened to strangle his supply lines. In Sinaloa, peace isn’t signed in government offices; it’s negotiated in the backroads with a finger on the trigger, and sealed by surrendering entire cities as bargaining chips.

By formally ceding the north to Isidro, *El Mayito Flaco* transformed an ally—who had nearly become an inconvenient rival—into a defensive bulwark.

It is pure expediency. Now, *Los Chapitos* not only have to worry about the rival offensive pushing south and into the highlands, but they also find themselves running headlong into Isidro’s group—an operative with decades of experience and a survivor of the war against the Beltrán Leyva cartel—who is now tasked with blocking any expansion northward into Sonora.

All of this is driven by the incentive offered by *El Mayito Flaco*, yet this allegiance doesn’t come cheap. What appears to be a truce is, in reality, a pact for war. Reports from late last year already suggested that Isidro was exacting a steep price for his support, demanding control over trafficking routes that historically belonged to the Zambada faction.

The benefit for *El Chapo Isidro* is clear: he consolidates his organization, acquires control of key territories, and allows *El Mayito Flaco* to remain the primary target of federal forces—or, at least, that was the plan.

As we can now see, Isidro has come under intense scrutiny. It is the art of war applied to drug trafficking: letting your ally wear themselves down while you fortify your own turf. And in this new geography of terror, the name of the special forces unit—the FEA—takes on a sinister significance. They have served as *El Mayito Flaco’s* human shield.

Historically linked to the dynasty of Martín Avendaño Ojeda, this group has borne the brunt of the most violent clashes on the outskirts of Culiacán and Navolato. By ceding control of Navolato to the FEA, *El MF* is effectively formalizing a defensive state of siege.

They’re no longer merely hitmen; they have become administrators of a territory where the control exercised by their lookouts (*halcones*) is absolute, ensuring that no intelligence leaks to the opposition. However, the toll taken on the Avendaño faction is evident.

They have suffered the heaviest losses due to three tactical factors that explain their current vulnerability. First, they were assigned the defense of the “Triangle of Death”—the zone connecting Culiacán with Navolato and El Dorado. 

Second, their high profile has placed them squarely on the radar of SEDENA (the Army) and the National Guard. Many of the casualties recorded in recent months during clashes with the army belong to this faction; and third, the drone war. 

The Avendaños have been forced to rapidly modernize their operations—even recruiting ex-military personnel and individuals from other states, such as Durango, to replenish ranks decimated by a 24/7 war that knows neither rotations nor rest.

The psychological blow delivered by this surrender of territories is devastating. To specifically mention El Dorado—a historic stronghold first of the Damasos and later of the Chapitos—as well as Navolato, is to send a direct message to the sons of El Chapo Guzmán:

“I would rather anyone but you hold this territory.” It is a scorched-earth policy where the objective is not to accumulate territory, but to strangle the rivals’ logistics—even if this means fragmenting the cartel into autonomous cells that, in the long run, prove far more difficult to control and pacify.

What good is a governor who holds press conferences every morning if the state’s actual territorial maps are being redrawn by a criminal from a hideout in the mountains? The paralysis gripping Mazatlán and Culiacán has impacted the state’s GDP in a way that official rhetoric can no longer conceal.

The fear of a *de facto* curfew has forced businesses to close, led to the cancellation of mass events, and transformed Sinaloa’s nightlife into a sepulchral silence, interrupted only by the passing of armed convoys. Sinaloa’s economy has been held hostage by the logistics of war.

Meanwhile, the war of communiqués on WhatsApp and Telegram continues unabated. The *Mayiza* faction clings to an old-school narrative, casting themselves as protectors of the people against extortion and theft, while blaming *Los Chapitos* for the prevailing instability.

They seek to win the public’s sympathy by citing pacts with groups such as the Cabreras or the Aquiles brothers in Tijuana, aiming to demonstrate that their network of alliances remains remarkably solid.

For their part, *Los Chapitos* respond with an aggression designed to demystify the figure of El Mayo Zambada, accusing him of having survived for 50 years only by betraying his own partners and family members. It is a battle for public opinion waged amidst a sea of ​​blood.

The fragmentation we are currently witnessing is dangerous. The Sinaloa Cartel—which once operated as a federation under a unified command—has now become an archipelago of violent cells.

Even if the top bosses were to broker a peace tomorrow, the local cells would continue fighting for control over street-level drug dealing and vehicle theft, as these represent their sole means of funding. The monster has grown so large that its own creators can no longer control all its limbs.

The greatest risk for *El Mayito Flaco* is that his special forces—the *Fuerzas Especiales*—might reach a breaking point. Should this armed wing collapse under the weight of exhaustion and casualties, the MF would lose one of his most significant—and most immediate—layers of protection, along with the buffer zone that currently prevents the war from reaching his hideouts directly.

Though, to be honest, some of this pressure has been alleviated by the Cabreras. That is why the pact with *El Chapo Isidro* isn’t merely a gesture of goodwill; it serves as an oxygen tank for an organization that is slowly suffocating under the strain of a protracted war. It is the application of the very maxim his father lived by for decades:

“Better a bad settlement than a good war”—with the crucial difference that, this time, the settlement entails sharing the pie in order to avoid losing the entire table. The reality on the ground belies any talk of a truce. 

While messages of peace circulate among allies, clashes continue in the rural areas of Eota, Cosalá, and San Ignacio. The strategy of blaming one’s rival for abuses committed against the populace is a public relations tactic aimed at alleviating social and military pressure. Yet, the 2,400 dead are not a tactic; they are a reality that no amount of propaganda can erase.

Sinaloa currently stands at a crossroads, where the state itself appears to be little more than a spectator to a large-scale criminal reconfiguration. The new landscape—marked by the handover of the northern region to “El Chapo Isidro” and the somewhat uneasy consolidation of the anti-Chapitos bloc—reveals a state where governability has been supplanted by a “balance of terror” between rival factions.

The MF-Isidro pact is, in essence, the formalization of Sinaloa’s fragmentation. We will be closely monitoring developments in Navolato and the northern part of the state, for in this war of positions, every single kilometer of the Culiacán-Mazatlán *Maxipista* (expressway) serves as a trench.

What remains clear is that the organizational structure “El Mayo” Zambada spent half a century building is now morphing into something far more unstable and violent. The question is no longer who will win the war, but rather what will remain of Sinaloa once the dust of this battle finally settles—for while the leaders carve up their territories from the safety of the mountains, it is the ordinary citizen who pays the ultimate price for living in a land where the law is dictated by whoever possesses the thickest armor plating.

Source: Nación y Frontera