Preventing Urban Conflict through Deterrent Deployment: Culiacán in the Aftermath of the Arrest of El Mayo
According to El Universal the Mexican government has sent more than 400 special forces troops in the last two days to the capital of Sinaloa, Culiacán. These troops arrive in the aftermath of the arrest in the United States of Joaquin Guzmán López and El Mayo Zambada, two key leadership figures in the Sinaloa cartel. The deployment of these troops is aimed at deterring violence in the urban zone of Culiacán in the aftermath of these arrests.
The current dominant narrative in the murky arrests (according to reporter Ioan Grillo), is that Joaquin Guzmán López surrendered himself to US authorities and tricked or kidnapped Mayo Zambada by getting him onto an airplane and flying him into the United States where federal agents arrested them both as they departed. In one case a surrender and in the other case a capture made possible by betrayal. Reporter Luis Chaparro has posited that Mayo who is elderly and likely to be sick, may have wanted to surrender to see his sons and brother who are in US custody. The kidnap story may thus be a way to reputationally avoid the snitch or quitter narrative.
Culiacán was the site of a major urban operation known as the Culiacanazo in 2019 in which Ovidio Guzmán one of Chapo Guzman’s sons, who are collectively known as Los Chapitos, was arrested by Mexican federal government forces. In the immediate aftermath of that arrest, the Sinaloa cartel engaged in what could only be described as urban warfare to sow chaos in the city and block potential exfiltration sites. It forced the Mexican government to release Ovidio Guzmán.
Urban Operations contains a chapter by me, Daniel Weisz Argomedo, John P. Sullivan which describes the 2019 event in detail from an urban operations perspective. The chapter also includes a comparison with the 2023 Culicanazo 2.0 in which the Mexican government successfully arrested, exfiltrated, and ultimately extradited Ovidio Guzman. This chapter of the upcoming volume, to be released in August, provides excellent context for why the Mexican government is currently deploying additional troops to Culiacán, Sinaloa. Increased violence following kingpin strikes has been a common feature in the Mexican organized crime landscape. Experts such as Manuel Balcázar point out that the Mexican government is doing this to prevent a Culiacanazo 3.0.
