Mayiza Leader Abimael Aboytes Castro Is Killed

The Badiraguato mountain range is no longer just the historical cradle of drug trafficking in Mexico. Today, it’s a high-tech battleground where loyalty is paid for in blood and the truth is buried under stacks of cash. 

What we are witnessing at the beginning of March 2026 is a mutation of the cartel’s internal war, a fracture that has ceased to be a backroom squabble and has become an all-out offensive with armored drones and the mass displacement of families who have lost everything. 

Today is Monday, March 9th, and the news shaking the criminal structures is the fall of a key piece in Ismael Zambada y Sicairos’s game plan. Abimael Aboytes Castro, the man who spearheaded the faction known as “La Mayiza,” has been killed, and it wasn’t an accident, it wasn’t a technical failure; it was the result of a head-on collision deep in the mountains. Aboytes Castro was the commander of the advance force of Mingo García, alias “El 28,” and his mission was clear: to seize territory from El Guano’s people. 

However, fate caught up with him in a direct confrontation with Churras Calabazas’s men. This blow is significant because Aboytes wasn’t just any hitman; he was in charge of leading incursions into areas that have historically been under the absolute control of Aureliano Guzmán Loera, “El Guano.” 

At what point did the “embrace” strategy become a license for the skies over Badirahuato to fill with explosive drones while families flee with the opposite? The cynicism of criminal organizations has reached such a point that, following the death of their commander, El 28’s faction has deployed a disinformation machine. 

Citizen intelligence reports confirm that the criminal group has paid various news outlets to spread a false narrative. They want the world to believe that Aboytes died accidentally from the explosion of one of his own grenades. It’s damage control in its purest form. 

They seek to maintain troop morale and conceal the fact that their offensive, despite having the backing of figures like “El Músico” and the tactical support of Fausto Isidro Mesa Flores, “El Chapo Isidro,” has run up against a wall of local resistance.

The violence in Badiraguato has escalated to critical levels in these first weeks of March. The Mayiza’s offensive isn’t subtle. It is a systematic attempt to seize communities that serve as the natural gateway to the Golden Triangle. Towns like La Tuna, Huixopia and Bacacoragua are under fire. 

The objective is to displace El Guano in order to control the strategic routes connecting Sinaloa with Durango and Chihuahua. But to achieve this, they are transforming the mountains into a war laboratory. 

The Mexican army has intensified its operations, and what they have found is worthy of an international conflict: vehicles with improvised armor, the so-called “monsters,” and clandestine methamphetamine labs protected by minefields of improvised explosive devices. 

We are talking about commercial drones converted into bombers. In just the last few days, federal forces have seized and destroyed dozens of these drones, designed to launch explosives from the air. This tactic has forced hundreds of families to flee to Culiacán and Tamasula. 

The testimonies of those who are escaping are heartbreaking. They speak of intentional power outages in the ranches to facilitate nighttime attacks, and of roads blocked with rocks and burning vehicles to prevent any aid from reaching them, whether from rival groups or the authorities themselves. 

Look, when a cartel leader has to pay for advertising to hide their defeats, it means the internal war has already spiraled out of control, and caught in the middle, as always, are the ordinary citizens. And mind you, this doesn’t necessarily mean that El Guano’s people are winning. 

There are rumors that another player is entering the fray. The geography of the conflict marks very specific hotspots. In Huixopia, which used to be El Guano’s stronghold, the army recently located a training and surveillance camp overlooking the upper reaches of the hill. 

There, they seized .50 caliber Barrett rifles, light machine guns, and tactical gear bearing the initials of La Mayiza. This discovery confirms that the coalition of El 28 and El Chapo Isidro are sending massive reinforcements from the border with Durango. 

Meanwhile, in La Tuna, the historical stronghold of the Guzmán Loera family, the tension is palpable. Although El Guano isn’t leading the resistance, the constant overflights of armed helicopters from the air force and the intermittent military checkpoints keep the community under a de facto state of siege.

Business activity is suspended. Fear is the only commodity circulating freely. And while the Sierra de Sinaloa burns with a dispute over inheritances and territories, the state of Sonora isn’t far behind in the bloodshed. This Sunday, March 8, 2026, violence erupted in Ciudad Obregón. 

An armed attack between criminal groups left three people dead in the Urbi Villa del Rey neighborhood. Shortly after 5 p.m., two men and a woman, young adults between 25 and 33 years old, were traveling in a Chevrolet Malibu when they were intercepted by a black Toyota Tacoma pickup truck. 

The attackers, armed with assault rifles, opened fire mercilessly on Casa Blanca Street. When forensic experts from the Sonora State Attorney General’s Office arrived at the scene, they found not only spent cartridges from long guns surrounding the victims’ vehicle. Inside the Chevy Malibu, officers found three AK-47 assault rifles, commonly known as “cuernos de chivo” (goat horns), and a semiautomatic pistol. 

This detail changes the narrative; it wasn’t an attack against innocent civilians, but rather a clash between operational cells in an urban setting. The State Attorney General’s Office points to a territorial dispute as the main motive, although so far it hasn’t been revealed which criminal organization the deceased belonged to, nor who the occupants of the black SUV were that managed to escape amidst the gunfire. 

The situation in Sonora is complicated by the constant flow of synthetic drugs. Just a day earlier, on March 7, the National Guard and the Mexican Army dealt a significant blow at the Cucapá security checkpoint in San Luis Río Colorado. 

Three men were arrested while transporting more than half a ton of methamphetamine in two vehicles. We’re talking about 1,152 bags weighing 517 kg of pure poison. This capture underscores the strategic importance of Sonora as a corridor to the northern border, a route along which the groups currently killing each other in the Sierra de Sinaloa are willing to do anything to maintain the flow of capital. 

Let’s return to the Sierra de Badiraguato because that’s where the future of the Sinaloa cartel is being defined. The pragmatic alliance between El Guano and Calabazas factions to defend local territory against the external coalition of La Mayiza isn’t a new phenomenon.

It demonstrates that the leadership of Ismael Zambada Sicairos is encountering fierce resistance in traditional strongholds. The incursion on El 28  has forced local actors to unite, not out of mutual loyalty, but for survival against a force arriving with drone technology and logistical support from the Guasave cartel across the Durango border. 

The military deployment along the Huixopia – La Tuna – Bacacoragua axis attempts to stem a tide that seems unstoppable. The army has had to assume roles beyond combat, escorting civilians fleeing the guerrilla war and the shortages caused by the blockades. 

It is a humanitarian crisis ignored by the mainstream headlines, but one that is emptying the mountains of their people. The federal government’s strategy appears to be mere containment, trying to prevent the conflict from reaching the urban areas of Culiacán, while in the highlands, operational commanders fall one by one. 

The current tactical landscape shows a group that will not back down despite the loss of Abimael Aboytes Castro. Reinforcements continue to arrive from Durango, and the intensive use of drones carrying explosives seeks to soften the defenses of El Guano’s mob before attempting to enter with armored vehicles. 

In the mountains, the law is dictated by whoever has the fastest drone or the thickest armor. In cities like Ciudad Obregón, justice is written with bursts of AK-47 fire at 5 p.m. At checkpoints, like the one in San Luis Río Colorado, justice is measured in kilos of methamphetamine. We close this report with a bitter certainty. 

Abimael Aboytes’ death will not bring peace to Badiraguato; on the contrary, it is the fuel that will accelerate the next phase of the offensive. The all-out war for control of the routes to Durango and Chihuahua is only just beginning its darkest chapter. 

While federal authorities continue to set up intermittent checkpoints instead of dismantling the financial structures that fund propaganda and drones, the Sierra Madre will remain a lawless zone. The metastasis of the Sinaloa Cartel’s internal conflict has already reached different parts of Mexico and threatens to devour everything in its path. 

Source: Nación y Frontera