Omar Oswaldo Torres, the chief of the Los Mayos faction of the Sinaloa prison community, was detained within the raid.
Revealed On 19 Mar 2026
Mexican authorities have revealed that 11 folks had been killed throughout a raid that resulted within the seize of Omar Oswaldo Torres, the chief of a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel.
In a social media publish on Thursday, the Mexican Navy stated the raid occurred in Culiacan, a part of the state of Sinaloa in northern Mexico.
Advisable Tales
record of three gadgetsfinish of record
It alleged that its personnel had been attacked on the web site of the raid and returned fireplace, killing 11 “assailants”. Their identities have but to be launched to the general public.
“Excessive-powered weapons and tactical tools had been seized on the scene,” the navy stated in an announcement.
The navy added {that a} girl recognized as Torres’s daughter was additionally current throughout the operation, however she was launched to her household attributable to an absence of connection to prison actions.
Torres, identified by the nickname “El Patas”, is the chief of the Los Mayos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel.
In recent times, Los Mayos have been in a battle with one other faction, Los Chapitos. Either side is known as for a unique Sinaloa Cartel chief: Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, each of whom have been arrested and imprisoned in the US.
Thursday’s raid comes as governments throughout Latin America search to ship US President Donald Trump tangible ends in the battle in opposition to crime and drug trafficking.
Simply this week, the Mexican authorities participated in a law enforcement operation with Ecuador and Colombia to arrest Angel Esteban Aguilar, the chief of the Los Lobos crime group.
A separate Mexican navy operation within the state of Jalisco final month led to the loss of life of Nemesio Oseguera, also called “El Mencho”, the chief of the Jalisco New Era Cartel.
Felony teams responded with a burst of violence, together with the erection of roadblocks and assaults on safety drive outposts throughout Mexico.
Critics have questioned the efficacy of the extra militarised strategies Trump has pressured Latin American leaders to make use of in opposition to cartel leaders.
Capturing or killing cartel leaders is usually known as a “decapitation technique”, and the strategy is designed to weaken the construction of prison networks.
However consultants warn that the “decapitation technique” dangers growing violence over the long run, as new conflicts emerge to fill the management vacuum.
Many additionally level out that such militarised approaches fail to deal with the basis causes of crime, amongst them corruption and poverty.
Nonetheless, Trump has labelled teams just like the Sinaloa Cartel “international terrorist organisations”, and has indicated he would take into account taking navy motion on Mexican soil in opposition to such teams, regardless of considerations that such actions would violate Mexican sovereignty.
Trump advised a summit of Latin American leaders earlier this month that he thought of Mexico to be the “epicentre” of cartel violence.
“We’ve to eradicate them,” Trump stated of the cartels. “We’ve to knock the hell out of them as a result of they’re getting worse. They’re taking up their nation. The cartels are working Mexico. We are able to’t have that.”
Mexican officers, in the meantime, have known as on the US to stem the flow of illicit weapons into Mexico, to little avail.
Final yr, the Supreme Court docket struck down a lawsuit from the Mexican authorities accusing US gun producers of negligence, on condition that their merchandise find yourself arming prison networks within the Latin American nation.
