These are the ‘paradise’ communities of Mayo Zambada within Sinaloa

Mexican authorities were unable to arrest Ismael El Mayo Zambada García, the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel who hid in the mountains but had his “paradise” and main center of operations in a region between Culiacán and Mazatlán, in more than 50 years of criminal activity.

If we believe the version spread by the letter from El Mayo Zambada, in which he points to a betrayal and kidnapping at the Huertos del Pedregal ranch (a neighboring region of Culiacán), then the Sinaloa boss would have had to leave his “safe zone” to enter the territories dominated by Los Chapitos, who were allegedly in a meeting with Héctor Melesio Cuén and Rubén Rocha Moya.

To attend said meeting, El Mayo Zambada would have had to cross the imaginary border between the municipality of Eldorado and the community of El Salado (belonging to Culiacán). Between these two regions is a town known as La Loma, which InSight Crime sources identify as the territorial limit of the Los Mayos and Los Chapitos factions.

In her investigation contained in the book El Traidor, journalist Anabel Hernández collected the following testimony from Vicente Zambada Niebla (son of El Mayo):

“Jesús Antonio Aguilar Íñiguez (Chuy Toño) was a very good friend of my father. He was in charge of all the Judicial Police of the state of Sinaloa, he gave us information and protection about any police operation in the state. I had meetings with him and with my father. My father told him that he wanted them to locate friendly commanders that he knew in the areas where El Mayo has his refuge: El Salado, Costa Rica, El Dorado and Cruz de Elota.”

The journalist emphasizes that El Mayo Zambada not only had his main refuges in that area – others were in the town of Vascogil, Durango – but also his economic assets, so to maintain that ‘paradise’ within Sinaloa, the capo paid bribes of up to a million dollars a month.

Refuge of the Sinaloa Cartel in the hands of Morena

Of the 20 municipalities of Sinaloa, 15 will be governed by the Morena party, 12 of them individually and three more in coalition with the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico (PVEM). The Labor Party (PT), another of its allies at the federal level, will govern in one; Movimiento Ciudadano in one; and the alliance of PAN, PRI, PRD and PAS, will do so in three localities.

Morena only lost in the municipalities of Angostura, Choix, Escuinapa (PT), Navolato and Elota; I feel that this last municipality is the only one located within the area controlled by the Sinaloa Cartel faction commanded by El Mayo Zambada and his son, Ismael Zambada Sicairos, alias “El Mayito Flaco.”

The importance of losing Elota for Morena lies in the accusations – also made by Anabel Hernández – that romantically involve its current mayor, Ana Karen Val Medina, with René Bastidas Mercado, alias “El 00,” alleged operator of the Sinaloa Cartel who would have financed the campaign of Governor Rocha Moya.

In Eldorado – according to the election results – Morena swept with 57.4 percent of the votes. As regards the territory on the other side of the imaginary border, the one commanded by Los Chapitos; the party in power also won comfortably in Culiacán (49%), birthplace and headquarters of Iván Archivaldo and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar.

The results are repeated in Badiraguato (43.8%), birthplace of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán and Governor Rubén Rocha Moya; and another important region for the Sinaloa Cartel: Mazatlán, where victory came with 51% of the votes. The only major city they lost was Navolato, at the hands of the PAN and with just under two percentage points.

Although the majority of the state is in the hands of Morena, the criminal group that built one of the most powerful cartels in the world is – according to various versions – divided by the alleged betrayal of El Chapo Guzmán’s heirs to Mayo Zambada. Gunmen and gunmen guard and watch on both sides of the imaginary border.

Source: infobae