Mexico City
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August 10th was a quiet Sunday for many in Mexico, just like everyone else. However, in Sinaloa, a northwestern state facing the Pacific Ocean, it was not a normal Sunday. Seventeen murders were committed that day. One every 85 minutes.
According to Mexican government figures, it was the most violent day of 2025, surpassing every other state in the country in Sinaloa. Sunday’s murder was part of the latest in violence that grasped the state following the shocking arrest of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, authorities say, as the long-time leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico’s oldest and most violent criminal organizations.
Sinaloa’s murders have risen by more than 400% since his capture, according to an analysis of public data conducted by CNN.
The analysis also reveals inconsistencies in figures compiled by the Armed Dispute Location and Event Data (Ecled) of the Sinaloa Prosecutor’s Office, Mexican Federal Authorities and Watchdogs. Historically, Mexican authorities have underreported the number of casualties during the period of violence in the area.
Sources familiar with these conversations say that even in closed rooms, US defense and law enforcement officers distrust Mexico’s murder amount.
The capture of El Maillo in El Paso, Texas on July 25, 2024, unleashed an internal war between rival facts, locking up Sinaloan people in the midst of a conflict that disrupted everyday life, forcing large chains and family business owners to close their doors, according to analysts who consulted CNN.
The surge in violence in Sinaloa dates back to the competitive forces of the Sinaloa cartel that erupted after Zambada’s capture, says Victoria Dittmar, investigator and project manager at Insight Crime.
A fierce battle broke out among his followers known as Maitos, and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s allies were interrupted by persistent clashes between the smaller Sinaloan cartels. This trend is reflected in Acled’s data.
In a statement released by his lawyer, El Mayo alleged that he had been deceived by the leader of Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of El Chapo’s sons and the Sinaloa Cartel’s own leader. According to Zambada, the meeting pitched him as the real estate investment opportunity ended with an arrest in El Paso, Texas.
Zambada said in his letter that he was tricked, lured and handed over to US authorities by Guzman Lopez. The latter was denied through his legal team.
Both men face multiple charges in Eastern District Court of New York, where they pleaded not guilty.
Before El Mayo’s arrest, the clashes between cartel factions were sporadic. However, the unusual circumstances of his capture intensified tension.
Currently, both Mayitos and Chapitos have strengthened their attacks and seized key territory, Dittmar explains. Access data shows a sharp rise in violence in early September, when analysts agreed that the war had officially begun.
To protect Sinaloa students, Gov. Ruben Moya ordered classes to be cancelled on September 12th and 13th. The next day, amid uncertainty, Independence Day celebrations were suspended in several towns in the state.
“We have decided that the September 15th celebration will be suspended. The celebration is neither public nor private,” he announced in a video posted on his X account.
The numbers for that month confirm the scale of the violence. Four deaths per day, or one per six hours, belong to the official data. Ecled reported deaths twice daily or one day every 12 hours.
Dittmer says Zambada unleashed not only tensions between factions but also the wave of retribution that made Kuliacan a major stage in the city’s cartel war, and “we don’t see it in other Mexican cities.”
Sinaloa’s violence transcends statistics. It overturns the daily lives of the residents. In Culiacan, the constant fear of armed conflicts forced large chains and small family businesses to shorten their time or shut down completely.
The owner of a small business who ran a restaurant that was decades ago in Cinalone’s capital, whose grandmother’s decades-old restaurant was forced to close the door.
“If it was one customer, there was probably a day when there was one customer. People don’t go out at night, so to this day they’re not yet,” he spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity, not her real name, and said he was afraid of her safety given the uncertainty of the city.
Like many others in Culiacan, Sonia and her family had to adapt to the new normal that imposed “self-students.”
“We, the citizens, decided a few months ago, to only go out at certain times,” she explains. “In the beginning, it seemed like a voluntary rule because I was afraid to go out between September and December. Usually, nights and early mornings were the most violent… But in fact, you can go out at noon all day, leave school, and leave the main street, between the police, soldiers, the Marines and gunmen.
The video, shared on social media and verified by CNN, shows scenes that are becoming increasingly common in Culiacan and other cities in the state.
The footage shows that the collisions were largely occurring in urban areas. This is a new trend that exposed hundreds of thousands of people previously not directly affected by conflict, according to Dittmar.
Some of these violent incidents are happening near Sonia’s restaurant, she says. CNN supported her claims using open source data.
In May, the man’s body was found hanging from a nearby bridge along with drugs. A month later, the human head was left near the tourist spot of Culiacan. And two weeks later, several police officers were seriously injured in an ambush nearby.
On the first anniversary of El Mayo’s arrest, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her government was taking action. “We are working and will bring peace to Sinaloa,” she said at daily press conferences.
Nevertheless, that promise feels far away: “You see military convoys everywhere, but there is no real strategy. There is a daily shooting and there is an area where the authorities arrive in a few hours. It’s all for the show. We want to see real strategy…
On the anniversary of July 25th, Shaynbaum repeated an order to cooperate with US authorities, warning against foreign interference to combat cartel-related violence and human trafficking in Mexico.
Her comments came days before the US president signed a secret instruction directing the Pentagon to use military force against certain cartels in Latin America, according to a report by the New York Times.
It remains unclear whether the US Department of Defense intends to coordinate Mexican authorities with its efforts, but the Sinaloa Cartel is one of eight criminal networks designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the Trump administration.
As Acled Data shows in her first year of administration, Sinbaum’s efforts to contain violence are generally consistent with a decline in attacks on civilians. Since January, civilian killings have been declining in almost every Mexico state.
However, Sinaloa is undoubtedly a weakness in Mexico’s security strategy, with at least 571 civilians killed there in 2025. (In the other three states where civilian murders have increased, the total total is 49 victims until July 25th).
Targeted civilian killings have already surpassed all recorded totals in 2024, making this year’s setting one of the most deadly in Cinalone’s history.
And for many in Sinaloa, that August Sunday was another reminder of a fierce, never-ending war.
