Omar Oswaldo Torres, the chief of the Los Mayos faction of the Sinaloa felony community, was detained within the raid.
Printed 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 submit on Thursday, the Mexican Navy stated the raid came about in Culiacan, a part of the state of Sinaloa in northern Mexico.
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It alleged that its personnel had been attacked on the website 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 gear had been seized on the scene,” the navy stated in an announcement.
The navy added {that a} lady recognized as Torres’s daughter was additionally current in the course of the operation, however she was launched to her household on account of a scarcity of connection to felony actions.
Torres, recognized 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 struggle with one other faction, Los Chapitos. Both sides 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 USA.
Thursday’s raid comes as governments throughout Latin America search to ship US President Donald Trump tangible leads to the struggle towards 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 army 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 Technology Cartel.
Legal 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 towards cartel leaders.
Capturing or killing cartel leaders is usually known as a “decapitation technique”, and the tactic is designed to weaken the construction of felony 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 “overseas terrorist organisations”, and has indicated he would think about taking army motion on Mexican soil towards such teams, regardless of issues that such actions would violate Mexican sovereignty.
Trump informed a summit of Latin American leaders earlier this month that he thought-about Mexico to be the “epicentre” of cartel violence.
“We now have to eradicate them,” Trump stated of the cartels. “We now have 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 referred to as on the US to stem the flow of illicit weapons into Mexico, to little avail.
Final 12 months, the Supreme Court docket struck down a lawsuit from the Mexican authorities accusing US gun producers of negligence, provided that their merchandise find yourself arming felony networks within the Latin American nation.
