Historically speaking, the state of Sinaloa has always been a violent entity due to being the birthplace of Mexico's most prominent drug lords and cartels. But in the last three months since "Los Chapitos" and "La Mayiza" started to fight each other for the control of Culiacán, things have gotten out of hand.
With the mission of showing the world the collateral damages caused by ongoing turf wars between the two Sinaloa Cartel factions, Argentine youtubers Mauro Albarracín and Augusto Tellman visited the city to record a series of videos portraying the dangers experienced by residents day after day.
In their YouTube channel, Albarracín and Tellman published two videos that have amassed more than a million views each, in which the content creators show the crude reality of Sinaloa in recent months.
As part of their mission, both Albarracín and Tellman can be seen walking around the city covering events that have become a routine for locals: homicides, written warnings, shootouts and businesses on fire.
During one of the segments, the Argentine content creators interviewed a local journalist that is covering the death of a 19-year-old man that said everything has changed in Culiacán in the last three months, attributing those changes to the violent conflict between "Los Chapitos" and "La Mayiza."
"Recently we have had much more work to do, we feel more vulnerable...the government has become indifferent to what we are living here in Culiacán," said Ernesto Martínez.
About the victim, Martínez said that journalists reported the homicide of the 19-year-old young man at around 4:30 a.m. but authorities did not respond to the report until three hours later. "We are talking about a human being, not an object nor an animal...and authorities took more than three hours to respond," Martínez added.
According to the youtubers, "Los Chapitos" have implemented a curfew for the city of Culiacán, greatly affecting businesses and services throughout the city such as ride-sharing apps like Uber due to possible infiltrations from members if "La Mayiza" into their territory.
Due to the curfew, local businesses have also been impacted during the months-long war. In another segment, the youtubers interviewed a woman that owned a taco stand, who said nightly sales have fell 50% due to the fear that exists in Culiacán of leaving your home after 10 p.m.
"We are now closing at 7 p.m. due to the panic, because people tell us that something happen here or there," she said.
Turf wars continue terrorizing Sinaloa
With just a few hours until the end of the year, media outlet Noroeste reported that for the first time since 2019, Sinaloa surpassed the 1,000-homicide threshold. According to Noroeste, as of Dec. 27, authorities in Sinaloa had reported 1,004 homicides, a 62% increase from the total reported in 2023 (618).
The majority of the homicides have taken place since "Chapitos" and "Mayos" went to war against each other in Sept. Since then, 627 homicides and 732 kidnappings have been reported in the state, averaging 5.7 homicides per day.
In the nearly four months since the violent conflict began, the month of October was the one that registered the most homicides with a total of 187. As of Dec. 27, the media outlet says December has reported 145 homicide cases to go along with 131 kidnappings.
© 2024 Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
