Browsing: Mexico Violence

El Mencho was supposed to be untouchable—until February 22 proved the opposite. What followed wasn’t just an operation, but a shift: tighter coordination, faster pressure, and a cartel world retreating underground. CJNG now faces its hardest test—succession. If “El 03” holds, the machine runs. If he falls, chaos hunts the throne.

I took my sunglasses off before I shook his hand. Eye contact separates journalists from people who tweet news. I was sitting with some of the most wanted men in Mexico and the United States, surrounded by forty heavily armed sicarios. One wrong expression and I wouldn’t have walked away. This wasn’t myth or rumor. This was real life.

September 2024 marked the moment Culiacán stopped being collateral and became the battlefield. Fires replaced strategy, fear replaced authority, and a city paid the price. Tens of thousands missing or dead trace back to one decision. Schools closed, families fled, and a name chose destruction over legacy.

On a clear Sinaloa hillside, masked men stand calm and unhurried, rifles resting easy as the camera rolls. The video, signed by Churras Calabazas of Los Chapitos, uses the setting as its opening statement—a quiet, controlled insult aimed directly at Chapo Isidro, delivered before a single word is spoken.