SUMMARY
The outbreak of fighting between different drug-trafficking gangs in Mexico can be understood against the background of changes in the Mexican political landscape during the last decades. During the 1980s, there was a loose network of drug smugglers controlling their own "plaza" for drug trafficking. Governmental authority was highly centralized under PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, Institutional Revolutionary Party) rule and by bribing high officials, the drug smugglers could control their businesses without getting interrupted by the authorities. When single-party rule started to give way to local opposition these networks and relationships were transformed, to the advantage of some actors but to the disadvantage of others. The drug cartels started to fight each other for control over territory and previous alliances fell apart.
The Sinaloa Cartel has become more decentralized in the years past, following the general development that the other major drug cartels in Mexico have gone through. However, this development has not been as profound within the Sinaloa Cartel as in for instance the Gulf Cartel. Nevertheless, the arrest and imprisonment of the Sinaloa Cartel’s leader, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, in 2014 and 2015, have created tensions between some of the high ranking leaders within the organization.
The Sinaloa Cartel has had a stronghold in the Sonora state for a long time and have used trafficking routes from its ports by the coast of the Gulf of California, through the deserts of Sonora into Arizona and the United States. Several groups under the Sinaloa Cartel umbrella have been active in the state and they have been responsible for the cartel’s operations in different areas of Sonora. The Sinaloa Cartel – Los Memos faction and the Sinaloa Cartel – Los Salazar faction, both led by persons high up in the Sinaloa Cartel hierarchy, disputed the control over the “plaza” in the north of Sonora state beginning in March 2015.
The clashes were concentrated to the area in and around the town of Sonoyta on the US border, as well as in the town of Imuris, Sonora state. Firefights and shootouts took place in the open during a few months of 2015 and forced several hundred residents to flee their homes in order to escape the violence. So-called “narcomantas”, handwritten messages officially displayed, were hung up from bridges on several occasions and accused the other Sinaloa Cartel faction of being responsible for the increased levels of violence.
The non-state conflict between the Sinaloa Cartel – Los Memos faction and the Sinaloa Cartel – Los Salazar faction was first included in UCDP data in 2015. By May that year, clashes between the two factions had resulted in more than 25 battle-related deaths.
