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Members of the Mexican Federal Police arrive to patrol the city of Culiacan and to reinforce surveillance against drug trafficking in Sinaloa state, north of Mexico on May 28, 2008. The additional forces were sent to Sinaloa state a day after a shoot-out between the Federal Police and alleged drug dealers left seven officers killed. (Omar Torres/AFP/Getty Images)
A Mexican drug cartel dumped leaflets from a plane on the city of Culiacan, saying that the governor of Sinaloa State has taken orders from Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the head of the Sinaloa cartel, according to a report from The Associated Press.
“The governor, on orders from Chapo Guzman, told the federal prosecutor’s representative to send Javier Avilez Araujo to be tortured and murdered in the state penitentiary,” read a portion of the letter. “Act like men, don’t kill people who are tied up like El Chapo Guzman does,” it added.
It is uncertain which cartel dropped the leaflets, but the Sinaloa cartel has a longstanding rivalry with the Zetas over territory and drug-running routes. The letter also expressed dismay over the killing of a suspect who was a member of the Zetas-allied Beltran Leyva gang in a prison that is allegedly dominated by the Sinaloas.
Leonel Aguirre, head of the independent Sinaloa Human Rights Defense Commission, said the conflict between the Sinaloas and Zetas has created a situation that is “getting worse all the time,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
“Executions, decapitations, the melting of bodies … annihilate and terrorize. And the really bad thing is you get used to it,” he added.
More than 50,000 people have been killed in Mexico’s drug war since 2006, when President Felipe Calderon directed the army against the cartels.
