Mexico City, Mexico — Armed men stormed a rehabilitation center in Culiacán, Sinaloa and opened fire on April 7, killing nine people and injuring five others.
The next day, Mexico’s top security official, Omar García Harfuch, said the massacre at the Shaddai rehabilitation center was yet another violent episode in the ongoing civil war between the two main factions of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel. The power struggle has resulted in increased bloodshed in the region since September last year.
Read more: The cartel civil war that is terrorizing Sinaloa, Mexico
The attack in Culiacán resulted in the death of nine people and the abduction of the Shaddai’s President Guillermo Rodríguez, who operates multiple rehab centers in the state. He was later found dead, showing visible signs of torture, according to authorities.
Harfuch said this latest attack adds to the over 800 murders Sinaloa has documented since September 9, when the war between Los Chapitos and Los Mayos erupted, following the arrest of cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada by U.S. authorities last summer.
On April 8, Harfuch revealed that the armed group responsible for the massacre belonged to Los Chapitos, the faction of the Sinaloa Cartel controlled by the sons and heirs of former cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, who is currently incarcerated in the United States.
Allegedly, Los Chapitos were targeting suspected members of Los Mayos hiding in the rehab center. Los Mayos are loyalists to Zambada, vying for control of the cartel following the former kingpin’s arrest.
In Mexico, rehabilitation centers have increasingly become targets for drug cartels. Government neglect and the vulnerability of residents in these facilities have enabled cartels to recruit—sometimes forcibly—recovering addicts as informants, drug dealers, and even assassins.
For instance, in 2020, a dozen heavily armed young men were arrested in the border city of Mexicali, several hundred miles from Sinaloa. According to authorities, the men were recovering addicts recruited by Los Salazar—a group allied with Los Chapitos—from a rehab center called Oportunidad de Vida in Mazatlán, Sinaloa.
For just 2,000 pesos (around USD $100), the men were deployed to Mexicali to take over territory controlled by Zambada’s forces.
