From Luxury to Camouflage: The End of the Era of Mansions and Narco Ballads in the Stronghold of the Sinaloa Cartel

Culiacán ceased to be the same since the war between criminal groups erupted on September 9, 2024. Although the real breakdown began earlier, on July 25, when Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was betrayed by Joaquín Guzmán López and handed over to the United States.

From that point on, something broke internally: not suddenly, but through a silent, slow, and profound transformation.

MILENIO has identified that today organized crime has opted for camouflage. Ostentation has given way to discretion. Now they travel in compact cars, motorcycles, and vehicles without visible armor.

Executions have become more selective, attacks more surgical, designed to go unnoticed amidst daily routines.

But the deepest blow has been internal. The constant deaths of gunmen, mid-level commanders, and operatives have forced the factions into erratic, accelerated, and increasingly precarious recruitment. Inexperienced young people, teenagers, and in many cases, minors have been incorporated into the criminal ranks as cannon fodder.

A criminal structure that is changing

The toll is devastating: nearly 60 minors have died in the midst of the war, and around 100 are currently detained.

The contrast is brutal: before the outbreak of the criminal conflict, only five minors were in detention for crimes related to this dynamic.

There are numerous cases of individuals who came to Sinaloa looking for work and ended up absorbed by the machinery of crime or trapped in crossfire zones. Many of them never returned home. The war not only claims the lives of those who fight it: it also devours people who were only looking for an opportunity.

In parallel, the image of the narco has also crumbled. The figures who once lived in ostentatious houses, surrounded by luxury—those who for years fueled ballads and legends—have now practically disappeared from the urban landscape.

Criminals now take refuge in hotels, safe houses, or makeshift camps on the outskirts. Power is no longer displayed: it is hidden.

A Change in the Geography of Cities

The material impact on the city is undeniable. Hundreds of businesses still bear the scars of the war: bullet holes in facades, shattered windows, perforated metal shutters. Dozens of companies have scaled back or withdrawn from the region due to security concerns, weakening entire economic sectors. At the same time, a new dynamic is emerging: local business owners who, amidst the fear, are trying to rebuild their businesses, reopen their doors, and persevere.

The security cordons established in different sectors of Culiacán and in other cities where the conflict has been most pronounced maintain constant pressure. Areas are patrolled by federal and state forces, with permanent checkpoints and joint patrols day and night.

This cordon has reduced the maneuvering room of the criminal groups and forced them to reinvent their logistics, routes, cells, and methods of operation.

Throughout this year of war, the groups have intermittently gained and lost territory. Each advance has been followed by a retreat, and each retreat by a new outbreak of violence.

In the first months, the conflict was concentrated in eastern Culiacán and at the southern entrance to the city; later, with the realignment of forces, the violence migrated north, a historically quieter area. The war did not end: it shifted.

This realignment has also revealed that some cells are receiving external support as part of new alliances forged in the midst of the criminal war.

However, police and military operations have made it possible to detect them and, in several cases, neutralize them.  Simultaneously, drug laboratories, production centers, and staging areas have been dismantled, directly impacting the finances of the criminal cells.  Now, it’s not just the territory that is being contested: their money, the real basis of their power, is also being eroded.

How did the war between the Chapitos and the Mayitos evolve in Sinaloa?

In the first stage of the conflict, fear took hold completely. Daily life became cautious: people thought twice before going out at night, many businesses closed earlier than usual, and a silent distrust settled over the streets, that kind of furtive glancing without knowing who was who.

The way people walked, drove, and stopped at traffic lights changed. Fear ceased to be news and became part of the routine.

As the months passed, however, the atmosphere began to shift. The presence of authorities, constant operations, and a sense of greater control gradually opened up public spaces. People started going out more again, events, bazaars, sports activities, walks, and gatherings reappeared. It’s not that the fear disappeared, but it no longer dominates every decision. Culiacán, cautiously, began to reclaim its own streets.

And at the same time, beneath the surface, the way the cells of what was once the powerful Sinaloa Cartel move, operate, and survive also changed. What once seemed like a solid structure, with clear hierarchies, territorial control, and internal rules, is now a puzzle of fragmented groups, forced to improvise, to hide, to move stealthily, like loose pieces of a machine that refuses to give up, one that still struggles to get its gears turning again.

In Culiacán, peace has not been achieved, but it has been transformed. According to security sources, the criminal groups have had to fundamentally modify their operational dynamics.

In the first phase of the conflict, which began in September 2024, the logic was one of displaying power: convoys of pickup trucks, armored vehicles, high-caliber weapons, and an open presence on streets, highways, and in communities. The message was direct: territorial control through fear.

That model began to break down under the pressure of federal operations and increased military presence.

Source: Milenio