\n<\/p>\n
Monterrey, Mexico –<\/strong> In July 2024, following the arrest of cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada in Texas, activist Mar\u00eda Isabel Cruz and her colleagues begin to notice a disturbing trend.<\/p>\n Zambada was the co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful criminal networks. United States officials hailed his arrest as a “direct attack” in their campaign to dismantle the cartel.<\/p>\n But for Cruz and his fellow activists from Sabuesos Guerreras, a group that searches for missing people in Culiacan, Sinaloa, it was the beginning of a gradual increase in disappearances.<\/p>\n This trend intensified on 9 September. Power struggles broke out within the Sinaloa Cartel, leading to an increase in reports of murders, femicides, and missing persons.<\/p>\n Murders in Sinaloa rose from 44 in August that year to 142 in September. The violence continued into the next year as well. 1,657 people died in 2025.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Sabuesos Guerreras estimates the number of disappeared to reach 5,800 by July 2024, although this is likely to be a lower number.<\/p>\n For Cruz, whose own son disappeared in 2017, the increase in deaths and disappearances raises questions about attacking the cartel leadership alone.<\/p>\n “I don’t know if there’s really a strategy,” Cruz said. \u201cThey are fighting the leaders, but at the grassroots level everything remains intact, and it is the common people who are paying the price.\u201d<\/p>\n This December will mark 20 years since Mexico declared a \u201cwar on drugs,\u201d deploying thousands of troops to combat the cartels.<\/p>\n In that time, four successive administrations have struggled to dismantle Mexico’s criminal organizations. Nevertheless, the \u201ckingpin strategy\u201d \u2013 targeting and removing cartel leadership \u2013 remains the most prominent approach.<\/p>\n However, critics doubt the long-term effectiveness of the strategy. “What’s the point of fighting leaders if the roots remain?” Cruz asked.<\/p>\n Bernardo Le\u00f3n Olea, former security commissioner of Morelia, Michoac\u00e1n, argues that the “kingpin” approach leads to fragmentation within the cartel, which then generates more violence, as factions fight for power. He also questioned the benefits being provided to the citizens.<\/p>\n “You don’t stop paying extortion. There are still drugs being sold near your house. There is still crime, corruption,” Leon explained. “Because you’re not dismantling a criminal organization.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Monterrey, Mexico – In July 2024, following the arrest of cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada in Texas, activist Mar\u00eda Isabel Cruz and her colleagues begin to notice a disturbing trend. Zambada was the co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful criminal networks. United States officials hailed his arrest as a “direct<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":93654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[5279,3444,25001,25002,17058,3369,615,7125,1708,1113],"class_list":{"0":"post-93653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-cartel","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-decapitating","11":"tag-kingpin","12":"tag-leaning","13":"tag-mexico","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-paying","16":"tag-price","17":"tag-strategy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93653"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93655,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93653\/revisions\/93655"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}