MEXICO CITY, Mexico: Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Monday that the mass kidnapping of dozens of people in the northwest gang heartland was linked to a fight between criminal gangs.
Officials said 58 of the 66 people reported abducted in Culiacan, capital of Sinaloa state, were found alive on Friday.
“Two gangs are in a confrontation,” Lopez Obrador told a morning news conference. He added that there appears to be no threat to the public.
He added that hundreds of soldiers were involved in the search for the eight people who are still missing, and none of them were minors.
Gerardo Merida, Sinaloa public security secretary, said on Sunday none of those located wanted to report the kidnappings.
Culiacan is home to one of Mexico’s most powerful criminal organizations, the Sinaloa gang, whose leader, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, is serving a life sentence in the United States.
The city was also the scene of violent clashes by the Sinaloa gang in October 2019, when a security operation to capture El Chapo’s son, Ovidio Guzman was called off, and again in January 2023, when his son was finally captured.
Murders and kidnappings are common in Mexico, where nearly 450,000 people have been killed in a spiral of drug-related violence since 2006, according to official data.
