A pacesetter of a infamous Mexican drug cartel who had a bounty on his head in the USA has died in a conflict with military troops, authorities mentioned Saturday.
Sinaloa state, the place the highly effective cartel of the identical identify is predicated, is enduring a warfare between two rival factions that has left some 1,200 individuals lifeless since September.
Jorge Humberto Figueroa — who glided by the nickname “El Perris” — was shot and killed Friday in a raid carried out to arrest him, public security secretary Omar Garcia Harfuch wrote on social media.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had been providing as much as $1 million for data resulting in his arrest on suspicion of fentanyl trafficking and cash laundering.
Figueroa was one of many masterminds of an notorious conflict with the authorities in 2019 within the metropolis of Culiacan, Harfuch mentioned.
DEA
In that case, cartel members fought safety forces who had arrested Ovidio Guzman, a son of Sinaloa cartel co-founder Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Mexican authorities controversially launched Ovidio Guzman on the time, saying they needed to keep away from additional bloodshed. However he in the end was re-arrested in 2023 and extradited to the USA, the place he stays in custody.
Earlier this month, Harfuch confirmed that 17 members of the family of cartel leaders crossed into the U.S. just lately as a part of a deal between Ovidio Guzman and the Trump administration. El Chapo’s ex-wife, Griselda Lopez Perez, and her daughter have been among the many members of the family to enter the U.S., native media reported.
Mexican press experiences mentioned Figueroa belonged to a Sinaloa cartel faction run by the sons of the older Guzman, who’s serving a life sentence in the USA.
This group has been combating one other faction led by heirs of cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who was lured to the USA in a sting operation in 2024 and arrested.
The newspaper Reforma mentioned Figueroa was head of safety for the faction led by Guzman’s sons — often known as the Chapitos. In keeping with a 2023 indictment by the U.S. Justice Division, the Chapitos and their cartel associates used corkscrews, electrocution and scorching chiles to torture their rivals whereas a few of their victims have been “fed lifeless or alive to tigers.”
