Overview

• Law enforcement found 20 bodies—including four headless corpses by the roadside, 16 inside an abandoned vehicle and five severed heads in a bag—on a highway bridge in Sinaloa state on June 30.
• Authorities attribute the massacre to escalating clashes between loyalists of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and the Chapitos faction.
• Violence has spiked since U.S. authorities arrested El Mayo in mid-2024, with more than 1,200 people killed in cartel confrontations.
• The Chapitos have employed extreme torture methods such as electrocution, corkscrew drills, hot chiles and feeding victims to tigers, according to a 2023 U.S. Justice Department indictment.
• In recent months, bodies have been left with sombreros or pizza slices as symbolic warnings in the ongoing struggle for control.