Mexico's brutal Sinaloa cartel is at war with itself as El Chapo's son strikes a deal with the US

Australia Broadcast Center

20-07-2025

For more than a year, Mexican authorities said there was no reason to think criminal cartels were linked to the shooting deaths of Australian surfers Jake and Callum Robinson.
Expert observers had immediate doubts. The brothers were shot in the head, and their car and campsite were torched, in an area rife with cartel violence.
But the cartel link wasn't clear until a court document revealed a local prison boss had later raised concerns about two inmates. They were then moved to a higher security jail because of "their affiliation with criminal groups linked to the Sinaloa cartel".
Some parts of the document were redacted, but the ABC this week confirmed those inmates were Jesús Gerardo and Irineo Francisco — two of the four people accused of the Robinson brothers' murders. (Their surnames are withheld.)
As these details were coming to light, the Sinaloa cartel was coming under new scrutiny in the US.
The youngest son of "El Chapo", the Mexican crime lord who once led the cartel, has just made a deal with American prosecutors, almost two years after being extradited to Chicago.
Ovidio Guzmán López, or "El Ratón", had inherited control of parts of the cartel when his father was jailed for life in the US in 2019.
With his three older brothers, he led "Los Chapitos" — described as a "powerful, hyperviolent faction of the Sinaloa cartel at the forefront of fentanyl trafficking" by the US government.
Under the plea deal, El Ratón admitted to drug-trafficking and other crimes, and forfeited up to $US80 million in assets.
He also agreed to spill the secrets of the Sinaloa cartel — and likely the corrupt officials protecting it — to help US law enforcement bring it down.
The earliest iteration of the Sinaloa cartel sprung up in the 1960s in the north-western Mexican state of Sinaloa. It is now considered the dominant cartel along much of the west coast.
The US government says it makes billions by flooding American streets with fentanyl and other drugs. And it is increasingly targeting Australia's lucrative methamphetamine and cocaine markets with the help of outlaw motorcycle gangs, authorities believe.
But it is also "heavily diversified" beyond drug-trafficking, says Nathan Jones, an expert on Mexico's cartels from Sam Houston State University in Texas.
"One of the big umbrella crimes is extortion — extorting local businesses, taking over local markets," he says.
"The avocado industry, the seafood industry, illegal water sales in drought-stricken northern regions … they're touching everything."
Corruption in government and law enforcement has helped the cartel spread its reach.
But in recent years, its status as Mexico's biggest and most powerful has been challenged by the rise of a rival known as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or just Jalisco.
"There's been this debate for the last 10 years over who is bigger, the Cartel de Jalisco or the Sinaloa cartel," Dr Jones says.
"At this point it's pretty clear — we're going to say it's the Cartel de Jalisco."
One big reason for that is a bloody factional war that's been tearing the Sinaloa cartel apart.
For a long time, El Chapo — real name Joaquín Guzmán — led the Sinaloa cartel alongside Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.
When El Chapo was arrested in 2016, it left his four sons to share control of the cartel with El Mayo.
But El Chapo's sons turned on El Mayo.
A year ago, Joaquín Guzmán López — the son known as "El Güero Moreno" — delivered El Mayo straight into the hands of American law enforcement.
Both El Mayo and El Güero Moreno were arrested on a tarmac in Texas after flying in on a private jet.
It is still not totally clear how El Mayo ended up on the plane.
Early reports suggested he was duped into thinking he was going to see real estate in northern Mexico.
But through his lawyer, El Mayo has said he was ambushed by six men in military uniforms, who tied him up, took him to a landing strip and forced him onto the plane.
It means two of El Chapo's sons are in US custody, as well as El Mayo.
And the sons' betrayal of El Mayo unleashed an all-out war between the Sinaloa cartel's two big factions — the sons' Los Chapitos faction and the El Mayo faction.
"That is turning into a bloody dispute that has surged violence in [the state of] Sinaloa for the last year," Dr Jones says.
Parts of Sinaloa, including the capital, Culiacan, are said to be like war zones.
An NPR report this month said more than 1,000 people had been killed, and another 1,000 were missing, amid "nearly daily gun battles" on city streets.
There is now evidence the Los Chapitos faction is forming an alliance with the rival Jalisco cartel, Dr Jones says.
"The Chapitos, as best we can tell, have formed an alliance with [Jalisco] to kind of counterbalance against the El Mayo faction," he says.
"So it means it's very hard now to talk about the Sinaloa cartel as a coherent entity."
Mexico's cartels do not often target tourists, because it can put them in the glare of unwanted international attention.
An attack on an American traveller last October, almost six months after the Robinson brothers were killed, is a case in point.
Veteran US Marine Nicholas Quets, 31, was killed by Sinaloa cartel members near the town of Caborca.
It is in the state of Sonora, east of Baja California, where the Australian surfers were killed.
Like the Robinson brothers, Quets was travelling in a pick-up truck. The US Department of Homeland Security says he "encountered a Sinaloa cartel checkpoint" while on his way to the beach resort city of Puerto Peñasco.
"These cartel members attempted to steal his pick-up truck before shooting him in the back through his heart," a Homeland Security statement said.
On March 31, the US government used what would have been Quets's 32nd birthday to announce new sanctions on groups suspected of money laundering for the Sinaloa cartel.
The sanctions are among a string of measures taken by the Trump administration to ratchet up pressure on Mexico's cartels, and on the Mexican government to crack down on them.
The US has also listed the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organisations, and last month announced $US10 million rewards for the capture of El Chapo's two fugitive sons.
His other two sons remain in US custody.
The plea deal taken by the youngest, El Ratón, could help him avoid an otherwise-likely life sentence.
And his brother, El Güero Moreno, has also reportedly been negotiating a similar deal since flying into the US with El Mayo.
The US sees the capture and capitulation of the brothers as a big win in its war on the cartels.
"So much blood and violence lay with the Guzmán family," Homeland Security special agent Ray Rede said.
"No more."
It is not clear exactly how the Sinaloa cartel is allegedly connected to the men accused of murdering the Robinson brothers last year.
A translation of the court document that revealed the link says: "Their continued presence at the local penitentiary centre poses a threat to its safety and governance, as they have been identified as involved in smuggling substances on behalf of the Paisas gang".
It also says they "belong to a criminal group affiliated with the Sinaloa cartel".
The court process for Jesús Gerardo and Irineo Francisco, and two co-accused, has only just begun.
It is set to resume at another hearing on Friday.