EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Authorities in Zacatecas, Mexico, say a drug cartel retaliated for the killing of its regional kingpin by murdering 10 people, shooting up police buildings and burning several trucks on highways this week.
The alleged Sinaloa cartel leader identified only as “El Gordo” (The Fat Man) was killed in a firefight with state police last Sunday, Zacatecas Deputy Public Safety Secretary Oscar Alberto Aparicio said at a Tuesday press conference broadcast by several news websites.
Police were responding to a tip about people being held against their will in a house in San Jose, a suburb of Fresnillo, Zacatecas when they came under heavy gunfire.
The officers “responded to the aggression and eliminated the presumptive leader of the (Sinaloa) cartel in Zacatecas. That is what triggered the violent events,” Aparicio said. The man known as El Gordo “was killed during the confrontation. He oversaw abductions, homicides and all of the operations of the Pacific cartel in Zacatecas, in the southeastern and north of the state.”
In Mexico, the Sinaloa cartel cofounded by jailed drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and now allegedly headed by his sons and longtime associate and wanted fugitive Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada is referred to by authorities as the Pacific cartel.
Before dawn on Tuesday, police security cameras recorded a white pickup dropping off four corpses under an overpass on Avenida Plateros in Fresnillo. Earlier, witnesses told police that men driving a pickup dumped five bodies at the city’s Mercado de Abastos produce market. A 10th body was found in the town of Guadalupe, several miles to the south.
State officials also said several armed men broke into police impound lots on Monday and Tuesday, drove off with several commercial vehicles and set them on fire in the middle of highways.
Zacatecas Gov. David Monreal Avila told reporters Tuesday that traffic was flowing smoothly across the state and 1,000 additional Mexican National Guard troops would be arriving soon.
He called the recent violence “a reaction, a consequence” of police activity against the cartel leadership in the state.
